Request

1. I have a right to ask for under the freedom of information Act, the documentation that shows how you reached the decision not to renew PPCs of people approaching 60, what unintended consequences you considered, and what mitigating actions you decided to take to avoid the unintended consequences.

2. Examples of mitigating actions are:

a. To continue to renew the certificates of those that are approaching 60, and then to cancel the Direct Debit on the first collection day after the 60th birthday, all of which is within the control and power of the NHSBSA.

b. To highlight in BOLD LARGE LETTERS – PLEASE BE AWARE THAT YOUR PRESCRIPTION PREPAYMENT CERTIFICATE WILL NOT RENEW AFTER DD/MM/YYYY. There is little chance that I would have missed such a message.

c. To renew the certificates of those approaching 60, and then to write to those individuals in the month before that they are eligible for free prescriptions and therefore suggest cancel the automatic direct debit payment, or suggest the patient requests a refund should unnecessary payments have gone through.

1. I would like to see whether these very simple measures were considered and if so why they were not applied.

2. I would also want to see the justification for choosing 9 months as the time period. Why not 12 months? People turning 60 in 10 months’ time will pay for 2 months that they don’t need to the way you have applied your rules.

Response

Question 1: Since the service first started, the decision has always been not to renew certificates for those turning 60 within the following 9 months. This was to give the opportunity to decide whether a 12-month certificate was required or whether 3-month certificates were more beneficial and cost effective for the applicant. No documentation is held outlining how these decisions were made.

Question 2: We are unable to provide the requested information as this falls outside the scope of a request under the Freedom of information Act for recorded information held by the organisation

Question 3: We are unable to provide the requested information as this falls outside the scope of a request under the Freedom of information Act for recorded information held by the organisation.

Question 4: All direct debit PPC’s are valid for 12 months however the payments are spread over 10 months. The reason for this is to allow for any missed payments etc to be caught up before the next PPC starts.