NHS Business Services Authority Reviews 

Totally appalled by this money grabbing company. I collected a couple of prescriptions at the same time, thinking both were covered by my HRT prepayment certificate, only to find several months later that an additional item I had collected (or was collected on my behalf) wasn't covered and I had mistakenly not paid and I'm now being fined £48. No opportunity given to pay the prescription, just a big fat fine. The website is appalling and doesn't allow you to explain what happened, just 'do you have a valid certificate' if not, then tough.

SCUM, pure scum. Have procedures but seem to differ depending on who you speak too. Said they send a reminder but never received so they try and fine you with no recourse to an appeal or ombudsman. Bear in mind they issued 1.7m fines last year yet only 1 case went to court so I will see you there. Should be ashamed praying on the sick and vunerable.

Not fit to serve the British public , this organisation did not even bother to inform me that my med exempt card had expired , instead they fined me like many others on here , to add insult to injury , today my partner rang these people to ask about his free prescriptions due to another idiotic organisation DWP failing his ESA assessment for the second time in 5 years , he asked about the HC1 form as the DWP have left him destitute and he is visually impaired / stroke survivor . The woman on the end of the phone told him she would send us the HC1 form right away via email. As expected no sign of this email. So in conclusion this organisation is not fit for purpose and should be closed down with immediate effect , as it is failing the vulnerable poor British public !!

Tried for 4 months to get them to insist NHS Pension correct their misinformation to HMRC without any success. Consequently my monthly income continues to be taxed at 40%. Cannot speak to anyone responsible except call handlers who can only refer to a faceless Admin Team. Absolutely abysmal service.

No understanding, no empathy, no compassion. Just robots who go off scripts. You may as well use AI, who'd make better judgement than these robots. 70year old pensioner with very little grasp of English made a genuine mistake as all they know is that they receive a pension. What's the point in attempting to object to the fine if they don't really care?

What an absolutely diabolical service this is , no one seems to know what they are doing . They send you a letter demanding money then when you phone they have no idea what you are talking about and when they eventually figure it out it’s all of a sudden not their problem to deal with.
What a joke.

Thank you wasting my and pharmacy time and thank you stressing me out. Thank you nhs. I used respect this organisation, now I am not. I have evidence and even pharmacy knows I have paid. No compassion. Survey ask do you attend NHS Business Services Authority panel? Really? Stick your panel in your face. Why would I attend this panel. I don't your panel because bad situation I went though your organisation.

Absolute utter rubbish. 34 years of service, 33 years of paying into my pension.
1. I should have retired on my 55th birthday. They CHANGED my date!! No notification, no email, no letter. I found out just because I made a quick call to see how things were ticking along and BAM. I'd ended my contract a couple of weeks before thinking I'd have a month's wages with some holiday pay. "I'm sorry Mrs... but there has been a complication. You should have asked for your last wage to be Non-pensionable pay! (WHAT??? Who know this? NO-ONE, that's who).
Your date has been postponed.
Fuming.
She went on to say... 'But you are getting a larger payment this month, so you'll have money'
What in the name of all things, give her the right to say that? My goodness so rude, I'm now not recieving ANY money and am living on borrowed money.
2. NEW Retirement date came. NOTHING no letter, no email, no phone call. No 'welcome to your retirement or congratulations on your retirement. No lump sum, no idea when I'll be getting my regular payment.
3. Contacted them. She said... "you'll get a letter" when? "Soon" when will I find out about my payments, how much I'll get per month? "You'll get a letter" and what about my lump sum. "It'll be paid within 30 days" you do know i have bills? "Well if you haven't heard anything in 2 weeks, give us a call back.

So that's it.. nothing. Absolutely awful, customer services. And NHSBSA you are USELESS. This is no way to treat people. I have given a life of service, for let's face it rubbish rewards and pay. Government has screwed public services for years and now in a time that should be relaxing, we are screwed even more.
Disgraceful

I was exempt from my prescription charges as I was covered by a full HC2 certificate. I told the pharmacist this when I collected it and then a few months later I received a letter in the post from NHSBSA stating that I'd fraudulently reported being unemployed! Obviously the pharmacist must've ticked the wrong box or something which triggered their systems to flag it up. I tried ringing the pharmacy but of course they denied everything.

I thought getting it sorted through the NHSBSA would be a breeze because after all, both unemployment and a HC2 certificate effectively entitles you to the exact same things... Sadly this was NOT the case!

Firstly, do NOT waste your time trying to ring them. All you will be greeted with is an automated message saying "We are really busy at the moment, please try your call again later" - There is no way to wait on hold or in a queue, you just have to cross your fingers, toes and confess your sins at church, praying you get through... In the 100+ times I tried in one week, I didn't get through once and just got this "We're busy" message.

I decided to try E-Mailing them and even that didn't work! It appears that their E-Mail system is not designed to handle big E-Mails. I sent them a three paragraph E-Mail and got no reply. I sent a simple E-Mail saying "Hello, I'm just wondering if you received my previous E-Mail" and I got an automated reply back thanking me. Someone did eventually get back to me asking me for my details of which I sent but got no automated reply. I waited another week and sent it again but still didn't get any sort of reply, even an automated one. I sent them another one simply saying "Hello, I don't think you're receiving my E-Mails. Can you please call me (number)" and to my surprise I got an automated reply! (They didn't ring in case you were wondering, what a surprise!)

I tested this a few more times and it appears that if your E-Mail contains more than 100 characters they will not receive it! So it's impossible to get in touch with them on the phone and E-Mailing them is pretty useless as well due to this pathetic limit! My name, address and date of birth leaves me just 7 characters to explain the issue..... USELESS!!

I tried to challenge the fine on their website and I didn't even get an option for that. Just asked me whether I wanted to pay it in full or spread it over 6 payments. This service looks to be deliberately designed to make it impossible to appeal any fines.

In the end I felt like I had no option but to pay their unfair fine. The reason for this is their letters state you only have so many days to appeal, pay or setup an installment plan otherwise they will add more fees etc to it. I figured if it's this hard to contact them over £60, do I really want to risk trying to get in touch with them once they've added all the fees... I'm still to this day trying to get in touch with them to get this refunded but I don't think I ever will!

An absolute disgrace of an organisation! Been trying to cancel the PPC for months now and still no further forward. Funny how it took 2 minutes to sign up for but when on longer needed I’m unable to cancel?!!

Telephoned these clowns months ago and also left email requesting they return my calls or at least reply to my email. No chance of that happening!

Phoned again today only to be given mixed and very confusing information by a foreign sounding woman then bloke. When I challenged their information they changed their advice and basically back tracked. Finally when asked I paid the remaining payment as advised. Still waiting for the confirmation email which I should have apparently received immediately. Guess it’s only been around 8 hours.

Call me cynical but I’d be very surprised if my PPC has actually been cancelled!!

NOT ALL HEROS WORK FIR OUR NHS 🤷‍♂️

From recent ongoing experience of trying to cancel a Prescription Prepayment Certificate I would say that this organisation are so incompetent they actually make their own work and keep themselves in a job.

What should have been a very straightforward matter is still ongoing after 2 months, my local MP is now involved.

At first I thought they were just inept and then after a while obstructive. Now I would use the words misconduct and misrepresentation.

Agreement for what i believed was 12 months after an eye operation to cover costs of prescriptions .After treatment add ended I cancelled my direct debit and hadn’t used the PPC for weeks as i no longer required medication.To then receive a letter for charges £100.44 threatening legal action ,credit reference agency.Having waited at least an hour to speak to someone i was told that my direct debit had been cancelled ONE DAY late ,so because of this i was agreeing to another 12 month PPC ,i explained all the above and that i hadn’t used it for weeks prior to cancellation.But have add to pay for another year ,please be aware when entering into this agreement.My partner was also issue charges of £50 months earlier ,she has a medical exemption for epilepsy medication and was unaware her exemption had expired ,but was still under the Epilepsy services and receiving medication ,she did not receive an email or letter to ask her to renew ,again she rang spoke to two different advisors explained she is still covered by her exemption for the period it had expired again refused to listen issued charged .I am was shocked that this is an NHS service .?All they appear to do is issue patients with unnecessary charges .SHOCKING SERVICE.

Saga continues. Sent the formal complaint on the appropriate form. It was acknowledged - the date it the one they enter it on 'system'- not the postal date. Yet, 45 working days later, no response. Now written to me to say I need to complete a form- that I completed and sent 11th April. Ombodsman will now accept the case.

3 hours on phone line from 8am.No message on line about waiting times .Not good enough

I worked at this place and I don't recommend anyone to work at it.

They are full of nepotism, promotions of the wrong people to the wrong positions, racism against minority ethnics, disgusting work ethics that leave people bullied... Funny enough they keep announcing that they received awards on being among bet places to work, interesting to dig into this and know what creative misleading facts they put to get these awards.

This place is like a zone that has no decency, so glad I left them

My hubby has retired after 41 years in the NHS. This dept handle nhs pensions…..He retired in Sept only to find 8 months later that they have been overpaying his pension. He did check twice if the calculations were correct before he retired to be told yes.
They now claim they have over-calculated his pension by £6k a year - oh and want £10k of his lump sum back…… They have re calculated his pension only to seemingly get it wrong again….. He contacted them 2 weeks ago to question the miscalculations and ask how on earth there was the initial miscalculation, to be told by the call handler he couldnt be put thro to the relevant team as they dont take phone calls(?) All has to be done by email. They have told us that they have 10 working days to respond….. well we are now on 12 working days and heard nothing so called again - the call handler admitted the pay team havent looked at the referral as they didnt know what we were asking?!?!! But didnt contact us to clarify…..

This will be taken further, people who have worked hard all their lives and have earned their pension should not have the financial rug pulled from under them like this. We have made life decisions based my the financial information he was given at the time from pensions and to now be told its wrong is incredibly stressful. Plus not being able to sort it out by speaking to someone is unforgivable.

We just want an explanation how they have arrived at the new calculation (as seems wrong) and how we need to pay back what we owe…..

Staffed by complete fools unable to read.

This awful department have sent me yet another threatening letter about my exemption certificate.

If you would like to look at the records my last two were cancelled but you absolutely hounded me and my family causing massive stress to a struggling family.

They refused to engage with any empathy at all until I finally managed to speak with a human being. Mandy was wonderful and actually listened and understood the situation whereas everyone else at your organisation had all the charisma of robots repeating a script.

You then had the audacity to chase me and send further threatening letters for one of those prescriptions that had already been paid.

No answer - weeks of waiting for email replies and no apologies when you made a massive mistake.

So go on, do the same again. Send me another fine and threatening letters from your robots.

Unbelievably, a department within the NHS seems to serve no other purpose than to make people’s lives a misery.

The way you have set up exemption certificates is designed to catch people out and force them into paying exorbitant fines. Even my local pharmacy, who are brilliant, had no idea of the new rules about fines because you just sneaked it in without any form of communication.

I fully agree that there are people out there that buck the system but you treat everyone with equal disdain, yet you demand respect from us but offer absolutely none yourself.

You should be ashamed of your working practices.

So go on, send the fine. I’ll pay it as I’ve been caught out by your archaic system. But I reiterate, you are a disgraceful bunch and have driven me and my family to the brink of mental and financial ruin.

Utterly, utterly awful people employed by an amazing organisation. You’ll be solely responsible for tarnishing our great service.

Pathetic.

No mitigating circumstances.
Not able to defend an honest communication mission between a husband and wife. I accidentally did not realise my wife's prescription prepayment had just expired when I collected a prescription for her. As soon as we realised the mistake we phoned but were told they couldn't see any outstanding payments and therefore couldn't pay for the prescription and would have to wait for the letter and fine.
Complete and utter con.

I have been waiting 30 minutes to speak to someone, still hanging on and on and on.