Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, why NHS prescription forms have not been updated to include people in receipt of universal credit who are entitled to free prescriptions.

A revised version of the FP10 prescription form, featuring a dedicated tick-box for use by Universal Credit claimants who meet the criteria for free National Health Service prescriptions, recently received Ministerial clearance. Any change to the form involves major system and software updates across the NHS to allow the re-designed form to be used and processed. The revised paper form is currently being prepared for testing, to ensure it is compatible with the scanners used by the NHS Business Services Authority. The revised form will be introduced at the earliest opportunity.