stop of supply of contact lens from NHM

[salim adam]

I am at an advance stage with KC in both my eyes .I wear soft contact lenses which need to be changed every 3 months upon till now for the last 23yrs The NHS has funded me for my lenses bill supplied by my optomotrist but now the NHS are saying they no longer will be paying for my lenses and not able to work it will be difficult for me to pay for the contact lenses which will mean that i will end up going for the graph which i dont realy want to please is there anybody who can advise me where to turn to for funding.[/b]

[Andrew MacLean]

Salim

I am just trying to recover from the news that they are talking about withdrawing the funding for your NHS contact lenses.

Is this related to a clinical decision that a graft is now indicated?

You may gather that I am puzzled and perplexed.

Andrew

[lou]

Hi Salim

The NHS have been funding mine for the last 10 yrs until Jan this yrs they have now said that i have to pay £50 per lens it might not sound much but i only manage to wear them for roughly 16hrs per week (and thats a good week).

I asked them WHY i have to start paying as i'm on incapacity and DLA benefit and they know i'm registered blind (as they registered me) they asked if i was getting income support or working family tax credit (i dont as our income is to high) and if i was they would fund them but not when i claim a GENUINE disability benefit (how do they work that out)

Anyway i went to collect a new lens a few weeks ago and i was ready for telling them i'm not paying but i wasnt asked for any money so i took the lens and left.

What hospital do you go to?
How much have they said you have to pay?

luv

Emma xxx

[cherishu2]

oh geez if they do that to me ill be in a right fix

[Vic]

Emma - it may be worth investigating whether you are eligible for an HC2 certificate. Normally when exemptions for charges are listed, this is one of the things listed along with Income Support / tax credits. The HC2 is a charges exemption certificate for those who are on "low incomes" (I forget what the threshold is) is for whom the usual criteria such as Income Support are not met. The form you have to fill out is called an HC1 and can normally be obtained from doctor / pharmacist / NHS dentists. I thought that usually the fact that DLA / incapacity benefit were being claimed overrode the need for the HC2 certificate, but it might be worth investigating if it's something that would be acceptable to them.

[kerrie trim]

Hi

I'm not sure how absolutely accurate this is, but it may be helpful to some? I'm a caseworker and have been contacted by some clients on Incapacity Benefit who had suddenly been told they have to pay for prescriptions when they had never had to before. Looking at their docs, it seemed that a change in benefit rates had made this happen. Every person has an applicable amount that the government says they need to live on, made up of standard amounts plus extra amounts for particular circumstances. If your income is below your applicable amount, you can get Income Support to make it up - Incapacity Benefit very often has been topped up by a small amount of Income Support, but even 20p a week will count. Income Support gets you free scripts automatically, Incapacity Benefit doesn't. Incapacity Benefit went up, meaning some people no longer got the Income Support topup to get their applicable amount, and so lost the automatic free scripts. As someone outlined, you can apply for the low income scheme with the HC1 form instead - this is what I have had to do for my clients.

It's worth double checking how your benefit is made up if you're on Incapacity Benefit as you may no longer get free scripts automatically even if you have in the past. How people are supposed to know all this, I don't know!!!

Hope that's helpful - it's my first post! Just need to work out how to get the writing bigger in this box I'm filling up and I can have a go without my eyes all squidged up!
Kerrie

[kerrie trim]

Sorry, just thinking about my post - in addition to the basic free prescriptions issue, I seem to remember you get an optical voucher or something with the outcome of the HC1 (low income) application. If you get the HC2 certificate you either get free scripts or don't get them, but for lenses you get them free or get a varying amount that you have to pay, and you get a bit of paper to wave at the person wanting to charge you. Excuse the vagueness, this is from memory of being on JSA a few years ago!
Kerrie

[John Smith]

Hello Kerrie, and welcome to the forum.

It's nice to see someone "who knows" posting here. Do you have KC yourself too?

[Vic]

Yes the HC2 certificate entitles you to optical vouchers (also free eye tests and NHS dental check-ups) Having had both income support and an HC2 in the past I seem to remember that they are pretty comparable with what they offer, except possibly that the HC2 doesn't cover assistance with transport costs to hospital I don't think, whereas income support does. if you apply for the HC2 then when the certificate comes back it clearly states what is covered and as Kerrie says, you just wave it at people when they try to charge you for things.

As an aside point - if anyone is charged and they think it's unfair and they should be eligible for free lenses etc - ask for the proper receipt, and as well as applying for the HC2 certificate if necessary, you can apply for charges to be refunded using a form called an HC5 (slightly harder to come by than the HC1 application forms but again should be able to get them from drs surgeries / chemists or somewhere like that). But to apply for a refund with the HC5, you HAVE to have the correct NHS receipt and you can't get this retrospectively so it's important to get it at the time that you pay.

[Andrew MacLean]

(Not adding anything)

Just wanted to add my welcome to John's. good to see you Kerrie.

Andrew