NHS Pre-payment "fine" - how can this be allowed?

13

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  • LilElvis
    LilElvis Posts: 5,835
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    What on earth has happened to this forum.

    Maybe it's just this sub-forum, but I remember MSE being a friendly, helpful place.

    This thread has immediately derailed into debates over numbers of fines and a stunning lack of compassion for the situation - takman, in particular, thanks for those presumptions. Perhaps it didn't occur to you that maybe things aren't all that rosy for me either.

    However - all that is irrelevant to this discussion, I have tried to keep it depersonalised aside from relevant information.

    The question is - from a consumer rights perspective:
    If no offence has been recorded, or acted upon, and the customer tries to fix the mistake before it could escalate (or nothing comes of it), should the customer still be hit with the full force of the consequences?

    Or put it another way...
    If you are buying your weekly food shop, go home, check your receipt and find that you weren't charged for an item. If you go back to pay for it should you be instantly detained and charged with shoplifting?

    For a mistake you didn't realise, and tried to rectify?

    Maybe there isn't any consumer rights to discuss in that situation, but I hope there is.

    There are countless situations in real life which are more analogous to your situation than your "underpaying in the supermarket" scenario.

    - miscalculating your expenditure and going into unauthorised overdraft with your bank and incurring charges

    - driving down the road and not realising that the speed limit has changed until you see the flash from a speed trap

    - forgetting to pay your credit card bill on time and incurring interest charges

    None of these are deliberate actions, but once done they can't be undone simply because you put your hands up and admit to what you've done before the other party contacts you. You've still breached the "rules" and are therefore liable for whatever penalty is ascribed to that breach when the other party goes through it's procedures to issue their notification to you.

    Personally I can't see what the NHS has done wrong in this situation or why you are complaining when the fault lies with your wife for failing to look at the expiry date printed in large text on her card.
  • shaun_from_Africa
    shaun_from_Africa Posts: 12,858
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    I contacted the NHS pre-payment centre and offered to pay for the prescriptions and they said:
    1. They have no method to take payment
    2. We'll have to wait up to a month to see if we will be fined
    3. The fine will be £100 + the cost of the prescriptions :eek:
    4. It's down to luck whether we'll be fined or not

    How on earth can this be allowed? We realised we made a mistake, offered to correct that mistake as soon as we knew and they won't take money for it.


    It's probably not a case of "won't" take payment, simply that they can't take the payment.
    As you stated, you contacted the NHS pre-payment centre. If all that their system is set up for is to take payments for the NHS pre-payment cards, they probably don't have any way of tracing the prescriptions that weren't correctly paid for when they were collected.
  • bris
    bris Posts: 10,548
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    Bottom line, is ignorance is no defence. The prescriptions weren't paid for so if there is a fine then there is no one else to blame.


    There were nearly a million fines for this issued last year, why should you be any different. I have no sympathy for prescription theft. Yours may be a mistake but a million mistakes, I don't think so.
  • sheramber
    sheramber Posts: 18,869
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    Johno100 wrote: »
    You don't really believe that do you. According to this BBC report.



    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30622544

    That obviously covers the OP's circumstances plus fraud relating to the various exemptions

    I was replying to the figures you quoted on your post.

    You did not clarify your statement with the second set of figures.
  • takman
    takman Posts: 3,876
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    What on earth has happened to this forum.

    Maybe it's just this sub-forum, but I remember MSE being a friendly, helpful place.

    This thread has immediately derailed into debates over numbers of fines and a stunning lack of compassion for the situation - takman, in particular, thanks for those presumptions. Perhaps it didn't occur to you that maybe things aren't all that rosy for me either.

    Compassion isn't going to help your situation or make it any less likely you will get fined.

    Telling you the reality of the situation is that if you had regularly checked the card, make a note on a calendar, set a reminder on phone or other similar device or had a noticeboard etc then you wouldn't have been in this situation. It's simply down to poor planning on your part and the more you have on your mind that will distract the more effort you should have put into making sure you had suitable reminders.

    If you do this now for your current card then it won't happen again which is much more useful than compassion.
    However - all that is irrelevant to this discussion, I have tried to keep it depersonalised aside from relevant information.

    The question is - from a consumer rights perspective:
    If no offence has been recorded, or acted upon, and the customer tries to fix the mistake before it could escalate (or nothing comes of it), should the customer still be hit with the full force of the consequences?

    Or put it another way...
    If you are buying your weekly food shop, go home, check your receipt and find that you weren't charged for an item. If you go back to pay for it should you be instantly detained and charged with shoplifting?

    For a mistake you didn't realise, and tried to rectify?

    Maybe there isn't any consumer rights to discuss in that situation, but I hope there is.

    Just because they havn't recorded the offence doesn't mean you can get away with it. You have missed the deadline for paying and it's as simple as that, having clear rules with clear deadlines makes a fair system that can't be questioned.

    The speed trap example is a good comparison above. Imagine you went past a police officer in a layby and realised you were speeding but don't know if they had recorded it with a speedgun or not. You think you should be able to ring the police station and somehow get out of the fine by explaining it was a mistake and it hasn't been processed yet?.
  • Les79
    Les79 Posts: 1,337 Forumite
    The question is - from a consumer rights perspective:
    If no offence has been recorded, or acted upon, and the customer tries to fix the mistake before it could escalate (or nothing comes of it), should the customer still be hit with the full force of the consequences?

    Well... yes they should!

    You claimed for a prescription using a method you weren't entitled to use due to lack of cover. That's the bottom line, leaving out all of the emotional baggage.

    Using an analogy... It is like me doing 75mph on a motorway whilst overtaking (Your prepaid card has expired for a specific reason, but it isn't a huge offense), spotting a "speed camera" sign (realising your card has expired after doing the business) and then slowing back down to 70mph (wanting to pay for the service). Then Phoning up the police station (contacting the prepayment line) to explain your case on the off chance that they caught you, only to be told that you've contacted the wrong people (and hopefully the police station/prepayment line don't pass your info over to the fine department)

    In my analogy, you would very likely end up with a speeding ticket if caught. You are in the wrong, but it isn't a huge deal and pot luck whether you get fined.



    Or put it another way...
    If you are buying your weekly food shop, go home, check your receipt and find that you weren't charged for an item. If you go back to pay for it should you be instantly detained and charged with shoplifting?

    For a mistake you didn't realise, and tried to rectify?

    No, that's a poor analogy. No company in the whole of the UK would treat you like a criminal if you went back in to offer to pay for an item you hadn't paid for by accident.
    Maybe there isn't any consumer rights to discuss in that situation, but I hope there is.

    There are consumer rights....

    But bear in mind that you hadn't paid for the prepayment card, so you didn't really have any consumer rights because you didn't have the card...

    You basically made a false claim (by the letter of the law) and the NHS will have Ts and Cs relating to what happens when you make false claims. I think you are losing your objectivity though; takman, for example, was a bit blunt but they hit the nail on the head and it is sadly the reality here. Nobody on the forum would call you a bad person, but you effectively just have to take some personal responsibility.

    Oh and maybe I'm a bit black and white, but if your partner's health gets in the way of daily life in this manner then ideally you (or maybe even a carer in some capacity) should be helping with everyday things like this.
  • John-K_3
    John-K_3 Posts: 681 Forumite

    The question is - from a consumer rights perspective:
    If no offence has been recorded, or acted upon, and the customer tries to fix the mistake before it could escalate (or nothing comes of it), should the customer still be hit with the full force of the consequences?.
    Yes, they should.
  • stevenhp1987
    stevenhp1987 Posts: 907
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    Unfortunately you can't backdate a card, it only applies from the day it's purchased.

    Wrong! You can back-date an NHS prepay prescription!

    https://apps.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/ppcwebsales/patient.do
    You can start your prepayment:
    today
    any date in the next month (ready for your next pharmacy visit)
    any date in the past month (if you have a refund form from the pharmacist)

    You can backdate by a month, so if the prescriptions were in the last month, go get the card and backdate it and they'll be covered!

    The application form simply asks for a start date, you can backdate it by a month.
  • George_Michael
    George_Michael Posts: 4,251
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    Wrong! You can back-date an NHS prepay prescription!

    https://apps.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/ppcwebsales/patient.do


    You can backdate by a month, so if the prescriptions were in the last month, go get the card and backdate it and they'll be covered!

    The application form simply asks for a start date, you can backdate it by a month.

    You can backdate the start date on the form but this won't help the OP.
    What happens is that when you backdate the form, you can get a refund for any prescriptions that were paid for after the start date of the card providing that you obtain a refund form when you pay for those prescriptions.
    This is clearly stated on the link that you provided:


    "any date in the past month (if you have a refund form from the pharmacist)"

    As the OP didn't pay, backdating the form won't be of any use and it will in fact be worse for them because it means that they will be losing 1 months validity of the card.

    Backdating the start date doesn't provide any mitigation for obtaining a prescription without paying or without having a valid pre-payment in force at the time.
  • Eydon
    Eydon Posts: 599
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    Op - you must have a very trusting pharmacist where you are.

    I live in a small village. I collect my prescription from the village pharmacy every month. The pharmacist knows me and knows I have a pre-payment card and yet still insists on seeing the card (which has the expiry date printed on it) every time I collect.
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