DT News - UK - Investigation launched regarding fines for NHS patients

Dental Tribune UK

Fri. 1 February 2019

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LONDON, UK: The National Audit Office has launched an investigation into penalty charge notices issued to NHS patients, as the British Dental Association (BDA) has expressed its concern that these fines have potentially been used to target more vulnerable groups of the UK population.

Under the current policy that guides the NHS, certain low-income groups of patients, such as full-time students and pensioners, are exempt from paying NHS dental charges. If a patient is considered to have wrongly made a claim for a dental charge, they can be sent a penalty charge notice and required to pay not just the cost of the dental care, but also a fine of up to £100.

The issuing of these notices has increasingly been a point of emphasis in recent years, however. In 2012/13, 33,887 fines were issued to patients deemed to have wrongly made a claim for a dental charge. By 2017/18, this number had risen to 427,238—a more than tenfold increase over five years. According to the BDA, 90 per cent of the cases that appealed had their fines overturned.

The latest NHS dental statistics revealed a collapse in attendance among patients who are exempt from paying NHS dental charges. Since 2013/14, there has been a decrease of two million treatments delivered to these patients—a fall of 23 per cent.

The BDA has voiced its worries that the government has cultivated a hostile environment to vulnerable and low-income patients in a bid to keep costs down.

“This investigation is welcome news. The government’s approach to penalty charges has hit hundreds of thousands of vulnerable patients, and encouraged millions more to miss out on care,” said Dr Charlotte Waite, Chair of the BDA’s England Community Dental Services Committee.

She continued: “Ministers have told patients not to run the risk when claiming, but offered precious little to make navigating the system any easier. It doesn’t matter if you’re a patient, a parent or a carer, ticking the wrong box on a form should not come with a £100 fine.”

“Yes, we need a system to protect taxpayers’ money, but that does not mean constructing a hostile environment for patients, many of whom have complex needs. An aggressive policy that hurts those who most need the NHS requires real scrutiny,” she concluded.

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