Request

1. From the past 5 years, how many PCN's have been issued to persons, who held a Prepayment Certificate (PPC) in the previous 6 months, where the PPC did not automatically renew due to the person being within 9 months of turning 60 at the renewal date?
2. How many PCN's have been issued where a person believed they had a PPC in place? How many appeals were successful with the PCN's being cancelled?
3. How many PCN's have been appealed on the grounds that the PPC the person thought the PPC should have auto-renewed but did not? How many appeals were successful with the PCN's being cancelled?
4. How many PCN's appeals state a lack of awareness of the terms and conditions which would mean a PPC would not automatically renew? How many appeals were successful with the PCN's being cancelled?
5. Please provide screenshots of all pages of the PPC application form (https://buy-prescription-prepayment-certificate.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/start) from start to completion including those after the direct debit page and the users journey through the form?
6. How long is the average time between a prescription being claimed via a PPC to a check being performed to validate the PPC?

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 9 December 2024.

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

Our response

Question 1

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. This is because we do not check for previous or expired certificates.

Questions 2 to 4

Please be advised that we are issuing a refusal notice under section 17 of the FOIA.

The NHSBSA does hold the requested information; however, we estimate that the cost of compliance with the request would exceed the appropriate limit under section 12 of the FOIA.

We estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. The limit has been specified in The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the NHSBSA holds the information, and locating, retrieving, extracting and checking the information.

Please see the following calculations which sets out the estimated cost for compliance with this request:

The reason appeals have been made is not recorded in our case management system in a format which would allow us to run a quick automated report. Locating the information you have requested would require a manual search of case notes and call recordings on each record to identify if and why an appeal was made. In the past 5 years, 469,363 Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) have been issued.

Assuming that each search would take approximately 3 minutes per case minutes to complete – and it is certain that some searches would take much longer than that – this would equate to over 23,000 hours’ worth of searching. This clearly exceeds the 18 hours which would accrue a charge of £450 or more, triggering the provisions of section 12 of the FOIA.

Please be advised that due to the way that the information is held by the NHSBSA, it is not possible to submit a refined request under the appropriate limit.

Please see the following link to view the section 12 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/12

Question 5

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested and a copy of the information is attached.

Question 6

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested.

A Prescription Exemption check is carried out after a prescription has been claimed. On average this is approximately 3 months after the prescription has been dispensed.

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.