Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will pause the imposition of NHS benefit eligibility check (BECs) prescription penalty charge notices on disabled and unwell people who have been mistakenly awarded contribution-based employment and support allowance instead of income-based employment and support allowance.

Eligibility checks are carried out on claims received by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) for exemption from dental patient charges and National Health Service prescription charges. The checks are carried out through separate services within the NHS BSA, for dental patient charges the process is Benefit Eligibility Checking Service and for prescriptions it is the Prescription Eligibility Checking Service.

For both dental charges and prescriptions, where a patient claims exemption but the NHS BSA checks do not show entitlement, the NHS BSA will issue a penalty notice. However, if the patient or the Department of Work and Pensions later provide evidence that the Department of Work and Pensions made an incorrect assessment and the individual was in fact entitled to a qualifying benefit then the NHS BSA will remove all charges.

There are no current plans to change this approach in regard to the current issue the Department of Work and Pensions have identified but NHS BSA will keep the situation under review.