help - prescription costs

Help!

We are on low income, but husband works. Our daughter is at uni, and gets a bursary LOAN. Applying for help with NHS costs she is not entitled to any help as dividing her bursary loan by the number of weeks of the term produces enough for her to live on. However, she has no income other than the bursary, so effectively, this has assessed her needs during the time she is not at uni as zero.

She is a disabled student, but only gets disabled students allowance, the fact she can manage well enough to be at uni (and was not statemented at school) means no DLA for her, despite having scoliosis and being autistic.

Ironically, the disabled students allowance pays for her taxi to lecture if she cannot walk due to pain - but it cannot help her with the weekly costs of the prescriptions (the university GP will not issue more than one weeks). The cost of the prepayment certificate is about what she spends on food for half a term - so it would be a lot for her to find.

Any suggestions? It cannot be right, surely, that despite the fact that we are on tax credits we have to pay for her prescriptions - we cannot get her free on our low income, she is not part of our family anymore, but her living costs are considered to be 0 as she lives with us - obviously students don't eat, other than at uni, don't have medical costs if living at home and certainly don't increase parental bills.

spirit wrote: Help!

We are on low income, but husband works. Our daughter is at uni, and gets a bursary LOAN. Applying for help with NHS costs she is not entitled to any help as dividing her bursary loan by the number of weeks of the term produces enough for her to live on. However, she has no income other than the bursary, so effectively, this has assessed her needs during the time she is not at uni as zero.

She is a disabled student, but only gets disabled students allowance, the fact she can manage well enough to be at uni (and was not statemented at school) means no DLA for her, despite having scoliosis and being autistic.

Ironically, the disabled students allowance pays for her taxi to lecture if she cannot walk due to pain - but it cannot help her with the weekly costs of the prescriptions (the university GP will not issue more than one weeks). The cost of the prepayment certificate is about what she spends on food for half a term - so it would be a lot for her to find.

Any suggestions? It cannot be right, surely, that despite the fact that we are on tax credits we have to pay for her prescriptions - we cannot get her free on our low income, she is not part of our family anymore, but her living costs are considered to be 0 as she lives with us - obviously students don't eat, other than at uni, don't have medical costs if living at home and certainly don't increase parental bills.

Hi s,

Your query is not really within our remit, however, see information on the links below :

www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcosts/Pages/Prescriptioncosts.aspx

www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcosts/Docume...1-oct12-approved.pdf

You may also wish to check that you and your daughter are receiving the correct amount of benefits :

Benefits Calculator

See also :

Where to get advice?

bro58

As a student she does not get any benefit - the fact she is at university proves that she is 100% fit, even though she gets assorted reimbursements of her extra costs.

We are getting the correct level of benefit for us, our benefit went down when she left school, it is now at the same level as it would be if she had left home - only she hasn't.

Maybe if we make her homeless she will actually get some help... or maybe not, students only need to eat during term time.