PRESCRIPTIONS
A fine mess
WOMEN who are visibly pregnant but don’t have the paperwork to prove it, men who very obviously aren’t pregnant but accused of having claimed to be, and women who have suffered miscarriages but haven’t got the evidence to prove they were pregnant are among the thousands of patients issued with £100 fines for prescription fraud.
Freedom of information data obtained by Private Eye revealed that the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) issued 2.8m fines in the past six years, worth £271m. A quarter of them were withdrawn on appeal, suggesting a huge margin of error.