Prescription fines doubled in last year: RPS says ‘more constructive approach’ needed

5 July 2017: Robbie Turner, director for England at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, featured on 12 BBC local radio interviews discussing the issue of fining patients who have not renewed their medical exemption certificates. The NHS Business Services Authority have doubled the number of fines over the past year from 494,129 in 2015–16 to 979,210 fines in 2016–17. Turner said: “It’s easy for patients to forget to renew their certificate but fining people seems unfair. The Government needs to set up an effective reminding system, not a fining system. We’d like to see a far more constructive approach which supports and informs patients and a review of exemptions as people need better access to their medicines, not a financial penalty for a mistake.”