“We took our 18 year old severely disabled nonverbal daughter Aimee to the dentists for her routine check-up on the 26th March 2018 on May 16 she received a PCN for £120.80 , the letter implies she is falsely claiming INCOME SUPPORT , she is in full time education , Aimee qualifies for free dental treatment under NHS rules as an over 18 in full time education.
I have asked my wife exactly what was said in the reception , she said the receptionist said only “ no change “ my wife thought she was referring to herself and Aimee being on Income support , so said no as my wife claims Income Support and Aimee’s name is on the claim form as a dependant.
What the receptionist should have done was looked at Aimee’s notes to ascertain her age before speaking to my wife , seen she was 18 then asked is she in full time education , my wife would have said yes then filled out a new form and this would would never have happened.
I sent emails to NHS Business Service Authority with scans of relevant information , at first they demanded to see power of attorney and then a doctors letter stating her condition , I am unwilling to purchase a doctors letter because of the cost involved even though only £20 or £30 and getting power of attorney would take time and money we do not have , we sent a copy of the appointee form to them but they rejected it , I have also sent the income support form with both Aimee’s and my wife’s name on it and they still wanted to speak to her , they seem unwilling to accept the fact she has the mental age of a 2 year old and can only babble.
I gave given a copy of the Penalty Charge Notice to her schools head and she has agreed to sent a confirmation letter via email that she is still at school.
I am in correspondence with the British dental association , they are extremely unhappy with the NHS BSA’s hardline approach.
I have contacted my MP , the Health secretary and newspapers over this.
I did some online research and found this is an ongoing problem where NHS BSA nit-pick through forms looking for faults to fine people who fill them out incorrectly even though they may have paid or be entitled to free dental work , estimates from last year put the figure’s of more than 350.000 people wrongly sent PCN’s for prescriptions and 40.000 per year receive dental PCN’S , 9 out of 10 are won on appeal.
Your company’s hard line approach is sickening you seem to be targeting the disabled both physically and mentally and elderly dementia patients seem to be particularly vulnerable.
Why not send a form out to people who have been picked up on your system a questionnaire with tick box as to what benefit they are entitled to first then cross reference with DWP then send a PCN if they are not entitled.”
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