HC Deb 11 February 1977 vol 925 cc866-7W
Mr. Arnold Shaw

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what was the number of clerical grade officers and senior officers employed by the East Roding Area Health Committee in 1975 and 1976 to check the exemption from prescription charges; what was their estimated annual cost; what was the number of prescriptions checked during that year; what was the number of patients found not to have been entitled to exemption; and what was the total of the charge recovered from those patients.

Mr. Moyle

At the Redbridge and Waltham Forest Family Practitioner Committee, whose arrangements for checking declarations of exemption from prescription charges covered the East Roding Health District, the total staff time in higher clerical and clerical grades spent on these checks amounts to the whole-time equivalent of less than half an officer. Because this work is widely

Unemployed persons* receiving supplementary benefit only as a percentage of:
Reason for non-receipt of unemployment benefit All such persons All registered unemployed
Contribution deficiency 44.4 15.3
Benefit exhausted 42.9 14.7
Voluntary unemployment and industrial misconduct 4.4 1.5
Title not yet determined 4.2 1.4
Other reasons 4.2 1.4
* This information relates only to those receiving supplementary benefit from the Department of Employment unemployment benefit offices. Information is not available on the small proportion of persons receiving their supplementary benefit direct from local social security offices.

Source: 4 percent sample.

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