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ESA/SDP/Health Charges Penalty increase
Client has received letter detailing penalty increase for claiming free prescriptions/dental treatment when on contr based ESA. She will qualify for m/t on inclusion of SDP
HEr ESA will soon include SDP, we have submitted low income claim re dental , has anyone else come across increases re failure to pay HC bill (£50 a time increase) and via which Regs?
Do HC have to trigger another penalty ( and again under which Regs?) Do they have no ability to place matter on hold ?
If she has to pay bill eventually so be it but their lack of response when she detailed how litttle she had to offer to pay was interesting.
Also has anyone dealt with backdated claim re HC?
Thanks in advance - it would seem to be a fairly obscure query but she is finding it very stressful
Thanks in advance
I’ve come across it a few times. They’ve always agreed to waive the penalty & charge following a letter from us. So far at least.
They were not interested in even trying and were about as unhelpful as they could be . As I said in the original post t they refused to even consider a stay of action
MP intervention perhaps? Might help…
Yes I’ve suggested that and i also pointed out that as her health problems are of a long term, persistent nature so her her income is unlikely to rise”.
There seemed to be no prospect of negotiation at all from the Health Care Authority ( if I’ve got that right)
The letters cite the regulations under which penalty charges are levied. In those regs it holds that no penalty charge can be levied if the person did not act without due care or somesuch.
Have a gander; I too have found NHSBSA are pretty good at negotiating. If you can provide a sample letter with “how do you think a person of average literacy is supposed to comprehend this jumle of nonsene” then you’re half way there.
Receintly we’ve had four more instances of this occurring - mine was the first I’d come across - it seems to be something what is being worked on
I’ve had two overturned this week. One was “how do you think…” as above with a severe and enduring diagnosis, the other was a person who’d been given a genuine impression they’d be entitled to IS but as it turned out they weren’t.
I did send in another post last week to the effect that DWP seem to be paying this topic some attention - have distributed leafelts re claimants rights and resposibilities.
Also client has heard nothing more since she originally wrote in asking for fine to be written off.