Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many false declarations of prescription exemption have been challenged by the NHS Business Services Authority over the last eight years; how many were subsequently found to have been the result of a simple mistake; what were the costs involved in following up allegedly false declarations; and what were the total fines collected for the past eight years for false declarations of prescription exemption.

The information is not held in the format requested. The NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) assumed responsibility for the Prescription Exemption Checking Service from 17 September 2014. Since this date, 2,753,700 false declarations of prescription exemptions have been challenged by the NHS BSA; 902,304 were subsequently found to have been the result of a simple mistake and £44,650,549.24 is the figure recovered. This money is paid back into frontline services.

Information relating to the costs involved in following up allegedly false declarations is not collected by the NHS BSA. The information in the following table relates to the cost of the whole prescription exemption checking service.