Dentists’ fines: Mistakes over addresses hitting thousands
NewsPosted by: manpreet.boora 24th October 2017
Many fines incorrectly imposed after dental treatment are because of mistakes over patients’ addresses, says a health watchdog.
According to the BBC, The latest figures show 385,000 fines were issued in the last financial year and dentists say tens of thousands of £100 fines have been wrongly applied.
Healthwatch in Kirklees says problems with address records are a big factor.
The NHS accepts this accounts for some of the incorrect fines and says it is planning an information campaign.
The British Dental Association (BDA) last week called for urgent action to tackle a wave of £100 fines being wrongly applied to dental patients who had free treatment, with particular concerns about confusion among vulnerable people.
They had been fined following checks designed to stop people from fraudulently using free dental treatment when they should be paying.
The BDA’s research claimed as many as nine in 10 fines that were challenged were subsequently overturned, suggesting that many penalties were being wrongly applied.
Figures from a wider range of NHS fines suggest that the rate for withdrawing penalties after they were found to be incorrect is closer to 50 per cent.
Healthwatch, which represents people using health services, has been researching the reasons behind this problem and says many mistakes seem to be caused by how patients’ addresses are recorded.
Director Rory Deighton says differences in spelling, variations in how addresses might be presented or mistakes in postcodes could be misinterpreted as being a different identity.
When addresses do not match information held in databases used for checks, penalty fines could be triggered, he says.
The NHS Business Services Authority, which oversees the fining system, says there is also a difficulty with patients not updating their addresses, leading to discrepancies between their current addresses and addresses held in databases.
The agency says it will improve the information available to patients and make forms easier to complete after concerns there was confusion about which benefits made people eligible for free treatment.
