I refer to your request under the Freedom of Information Act, which I received on 6 December 2023 for information about the following:

‘I am requesting, as part of the freedom of information act, you provide me with the total number of 59- to 60-year-olds who have been issued with a penalty charge notice for not paying for their prescriptions after you cancelled their direct debits.’

Response

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you requested is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority.

When checking for exemptions, we only check for valid exemptions, not exemptions which have already expired.

When a prescription is received which has been signed as the patient being exempt from prescription charges, a data matching exercise is instigated. If no valid exemption is found through this search / exercise for that patient, an enquiry letter is issued to the patient which invites them to contact us to confirm the exemption they have in place.