Freedom of information request

I am writing regarding your request for information, which I received on 27 September 2022. In that request, you asked us for the following:

'A refund of NHS prescription charges without the FP57 refund receipt will only be approved in exceptional circumstances. How many 'exceptional circumstance' requests have you granted, and the total number applied for'

On the 23 November 2022 you provided the following clarification for the number of Exceptional Circumstances applied for

You have stated you should be able to supply one months' information and I ask that you do you

On the 23 November 2022 you provided the following further clarification:

Latest complete month please

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your request. This was due to an administrative error.

Total Number Granted

The data we hold relating to this question is from 03/01/2017 to 21/11/2022. In this period of time, we authorised 1,279 NHS Prescription charge refunds without the FP57 receipt.

Number of Exceptional Circumstances applied for

We hold information for all NHS Prescription charge refund requests from April 2021 to September 2022. In that time period there were 5,390 applications. With 99 being approved.

In November 2022, the latest month held, we had 38 applicants who requested 78 Refunds between them. Please see the attached information for a breakdown of these figures. 

*Partially approved relates to duplicate applications and refund claims.