Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Under the freedom of information act I would like to see the procedure you follow including how long you have to respond to someone collecting a prescription without entitlement. There must be guidelines to how quickly you respond. For example I collected the free prescription on 15th May therefore the pharmacy would have told you end of May so I should of received the letter from you first week in June. You sent me the letter on 11th August nearly three months later. Time period: 15/05/2023 - 05/06/2023

Your request was received on 22 August 2023 and I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

Pharmacies submit their NHS prescriptions to the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) at the end of each month to be scanned to our processing system. Once scanned, we process all NHS prescriptions and calculate how much money the pharmacy needs to be reimbursed. At this point, the NHSBSA will check random NHS prescriptions that have not been paid for because the patient, or their representative, stated they were exempt. Processing more than four million NHS prescription items every working day, the checking of NHS prescription forms is carried out at the earliest opportunity. The enquiry letter that is issued usually relates to an NHS prescription claimed free of charge up to three months prior.

NHS Penalty Charge Notices are issued in accordance with the National Health Service (Penalty Charge) Regulations 1999: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/2794/contents/made and the National Health Service (Penalty Charge) Wales Regulations 2001: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/wsi/2001/1300/contents/made.