A woman who suffered a miscarriage has been fined by the NHS for claiming a free prescription during her pregnancy.
Wait, what?
Sadie Hawkes lost her baby before she had received the maternity exemption certificate that entitled her to free prescriptions throughout her pregnancy and the first year after birth. She has now been sent a demand for £56.10 for medication issued the week before her miscarriage. She’s been told that she can’t apply for a certificate retrospectively as she is no longer pregnant.
/facepalm
Hawkes is one of thousands of women in England to have fallen foul of NHS red tape which penalises patients who qualify for free prescriptions because of a medical condition or pregnancy, but who have not yet been registered for, or have failed to show, an exemption certificate.
And they will pursue them to the ends of the earth, unlike other debts...
“The PCN [penalty charge notice] arrived on a day when I was feeling particularly ill and low [after] the miscarriage,” the 33-year-old veterinary nurse said. “It made me feel like a fraudster. I immediately called the NHSBSA and explained the circumstances to a robotic woman with zero compassion who said I was no longer eligible for a certificate because I was no longer pregnant. I was told the fine, but not the prescription charge, could only be waived if I got proof of pregnancy from my GP. That was really distressing to have to do, and made me feel I wasn’t being believed. It was the worst phone call of my life.”
Maybe move these robots onto the foreigner's debt department where they can perhaps do some good?
Compare this to the cost to the taxpayer of the NHS allowing an American woman, who had flown to the UK with appendicitis as the air fare was cheaper than the cost of the operation in the USA, to return home without presenting her with a bill "as the NHS are not debt collectors".
ReplyDeletePenseivat
Yup! *sighs*
Delete‘NHSBSA has now apologised to Hawkes and cancelled the PCN pending payment of the prescription charge which, it says, government regulations compel it to pursue.’
ReplyDeleteI have long suspected that, in addition to the widespread incompetence and indifference we have come to expect in the public sector, there is an active fifth column at work, seeking out opportunities to discredit the government by ruthlessly (and possibly inappropriately) enforcing rules and guidelines in order to generate newsworthy stories - the guardian being the organ of choice - of suffering caused by cruel Tory policies.
It certainly would explain a lot...
Delete