Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

I am looking into the prevalence of patients receiving PCN's owing to the complexity Job Seekers Allowance. Please advise the number of PCN's issued in the past 12 months associated with this benefit only - income based or otherwise?

We requested clarification on the 22 October 2025

I am writing to ask you to clarify your request. This is because we need further details from you in order to identify and locate the information.

Can you please confirm the 12 month period which you would like us to provide data for?

You responded on 22 October 2025

I am researching DENTAL PCN's only at the moment. I do not require data relation to prescriptions.

It would be helpful to get a 12 month snapshot from today's date 22.10.2025.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 16 October 2025.

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Our response

In the past 12 months, we have issued 8,232 Dental Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) to people that claimed Income Based Job-Seekers Allowance on the FP17 Dental Form, however no exemption was found in our matching process. A prescription doesn't show contribution-based job seekers allowance as an option for claiming free prescriptions as this does not entitle patients to free prescriptions. We do not hold information on what non-qualifying benefits patients may have been receiving.

Data Queries

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data.

Reusing the data and copyright

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2025”. Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.