A study conducted by Conservative MP, Chris Skidmore, on 118 health trusts of the NHS, has discovered that health tourists have taken advantage of free treatment provided and had cost £40 million of the taxpayer’s money. Now Mr. Skidmore is calling on the government to stop overseas patients from exploiting and cheating the system by introducing new laws.
Although only patients who have lived for the past 1 year in UK are eligible for free treatment, anyone whose condition is considered urgent, or life-threatening, or women in birth are treated. Mr. Skidmore wants proof of residence or passports to be verified before they are given treatment. Generally GPs do not check whether a person is entitled for the free treatment, as it is not obligatory for them. So it is possible that patients can be referred for treatment to a hospital and not pay at all. The BBC’s Panorama programme discovered that bribes were being paid by health tourists to be put on GP surgery lists and thus claim free treatment. NHS staff were illegally taking cash bribes for this, it was found. The investigation also revealed that overseas patients paid cash to ”fixers” who were not NHS employees, to get in the GP lists. Mr. Skidmore said that the law was clear that those not eligible should pay for the treatment.
Using the Freedom Of Information requests, the Conservative MP got the amounts of unpaid medical treatments owed by foreign nationals, from 118 trusts, to arrive at the roughly £40 million total. The Health Services do not charge when treating some of the infectious diseases, like HIV or Tuberculosis, to prevent its spread. According to Health Minister Anna Soubry, there is a review, started last year, of the current system to check and reduce abuse and to determine who should pay and that they pay.
