Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Question 1

What is the annual income from penalty charges in each year of the period noted?

Question 2

How are penalties distinguished from genuine error and fraud and charged accordingly?

Question 3

What happens with all of this revenue created?

Question 4

Is this a private company and who owns it?

Question 5

Is this a government department financed by public money and who is in charge?

Question 6

Who is responsible for the criteria of penalties and disallows genuine error that could be quickly rectified?

Question 7

How many cases or what percentage in each year noted, challenge or raise genuine error even though this is disregarded?

[On 21 August 2023 you clarified your request as follows]

‘My enquiry was specifically regarding the Dental Exemption Checking Service, by the NHS Business Service Authority but I am interested to know if they are also responsible for the Prescription Exemption Checking Service.

Your request was received on 7 August 2023, with clarification received on 21 August 2023, and I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

Question 1

A copy of the information is attached.

Question 2

The requested information does not fall under the scope of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as it is asking a question, rather than recorded information that is held by the NHS Business Services Authority.

In the spirit of NHS openness and transparency, we can confirm that cases are randomly selected when a valid exemption is not found. An enquiry letter is then issued to the patient inviting them to come back to us with details of any valid exemption they may hold.

For more information on penalty charges and how we check claims, please see the below links:

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/penalty-charges-explained

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/penalty-charges-explained/how-we-check-claims

Question 3

All money received via penalty charges goes to NHS England.

Question 4

No, NHSBSA are not a private company, we administer the Dental Exemption Checking Service and Prescription Exemption Checking Service on behalf of NHS England.

Question 5

The cost of running the scheme is covered by the income generated by PCN’s. The scheme is administered on behalf of NHS England. The CEO of the NHS Business Services Authority is Michael Brodie.

Question 6

With regards to the first element of this request, NHSBSA follow the National Health Service (Penalty Charge) Regulations 1999:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/2794/contents/made

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/wsi/2001/1300/contents/made

The Regulations are set by the Department of Health and Social Care and therefore, we would advise that you direct any further queries regarding this directly to DHSC:

Telephone: 0207 210 4850

Address: Ministerial Correspondence and Public Enquiries Unit

Department of Health and Social Care

39 Victoria Street

London

SW1H 0EU

For the second element of this request, please be advised that the requested information does not fall under the scope of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as it is asking a question, rather than recorded information that is held by the NHS Business Services Authority.

In the spirit of NHS openness and transparency, all enquiry letters are correctly issued as at the date of issue no exemption had been found for the patients. This enquiry letter invites the patient to contact us to clarify what exemption they have in place. If no exemption is clarified a PCN is then issued.

Question 7

This information is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority. We do not categorise reasons for issuing a penalty charge notice. A PCN is issued when a valid exemption is not found. No further information is collected as to the reason why an exemption was not found.

Data Queries

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing the data please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

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 2023” This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:

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

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.