Health tourism is draining the NHS of hundreds of millions of pounds a year because of ‘chaotic’ billing.
Hospitals fail to identify overseas patients or never send them bills, MPs warn in a report today.
GPs were also found to be doing too little to flag up those who should be charged for care.
Complications: Priscilla, shown in a BBC film, is unable to afford her bill after she had quadruplets on the NHS
A woman from the Philippines, pictured, known only as Sonia, had a heart operation after falling ill visiting her sister in the UK
The Commons public accounts committee accuses successive governments of failing to tackle the issue. Ministers were first warned to impose charges 30 years ago.
Whitehall research puts the cost to taxpayers of health tourism at anywhere between £200million and £2billion a year.
Today’s scathing report says:
- Britain is among the worst countries in Europe at extracting payments from foreign patients;
- Four in five hospitals do not expect to start recouping more money;
- The Government should draw up an action plan by June;
- Hospitals could be given extra cash for issuing more invoices.
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Meg Hillier, the Labour chairman of the accounts committee, said: ‘The Government’s failure to get a grip on recovering the costs of treating overseas visitors is depriving the NHS of vital funds.
‘Our committee has reported extensively on the financial pressures facing the Health Service and it is simply unacceptable that so much money owed should continue to go uncollected.
‘This is a problem for the Health Service as a whole and work to put it right must be driven by central government.
‘We are concerned that financial progress to date does not reflect meaningful progress with implementing the rules and the Department of Health and NHS have much to do if they are to meet their target for cost recovery.’
The report warns the Government will fall well short of its target of collecting £500million a year from overseas patients by 2017/18.
A Palestinian man who had an operation to remove kidney stones and then discharged himself early
Figures for 2015/16 show hospitals only managed to invoice patients for £289million and much of this was never repaid.
‘The systems for cost recovery appear chaotic,’ the report adds.
The extent of the problem will be exposed in a hard-hitting BBC2 documentary tonight.
It will highlight the case of a Nigerian woman who recently had quads in an NHS hospital.
Imperial College Healthcare in West London is now chasing a bill of more than £500,000.
The mother had wanted to have the delivery in the US but was refused entry and went into labour shortly after landing at Heathrow in November.
The babies were three months premature and two died. The remaining two are still being treated in intensive care.
Hospital staff are also trying to recover £59,000 from a Filipina who had major heart surgery in November, who has since flown home.
One manager says patients including failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants ‘disappear into the community’ before they can be charged.
Imperial spends about £4million a year on overseas patients and recovers only a third of the costs.
The show highlights the case of a Nigerian woman who recently had quads in an NHS hospital
The committee also highlights how the NHS is particularly bad at recovering costs from European patients.
Under EU arrangements, the Government is allowed to reclaim the bills from member states for every patient treated on the NHS.
In return, ministers must pay that relevant member state whenever a UK citizen receives treatment in their healthcare system.
But figures for 2014/15 show that the Government recovered only £49million yet paid out £675million.
This included £4.5million paid to Poland while just £1.5million was clawed back for treating Polish patients on the NHS.
The report also highlights a survey of 50 hospital trusts by the National Audit Office last year showing that only 11 expected to increase income from overseas patients.
The NHS has been obliged to collect money from foreign patients since 1982 when charging regulations were first introduced.
These state that only patients who are ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK – and have lived here for at least six months – are eligible for free treatment, operations and scans.
This excludes GP and AE services which are currently free for all.
But today’s report highlights how successive governments have done ‘very little’ for most of the subsequent 30 years.
MPs also urged GPs to flag up health tourists when they refer them to hospitals, particularly those from the EU. But this suggestion was firmly rejected by Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, who is chairman of the Royal College of GPs.
One of Priscilla’s babies, Elizah. The birth is part of the new BBC programme Hospital
‘We must stop perpetuating this idea that general practice should, in whatever way, assist with border control,’ she said.
‘Patients share information with their GP on the mutual understanding that it will remain confidential.’
A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘This Government was the first to put measures in place to make sure the NHS recoups money from people who are not eligible for free care.
‘Some hospitals are already doing great work and the amount of income identified has more than trebled in three years, to £289million. However, there is more to be done to make sure that if people are not eligible for free care, they pay for it.’
The shocking failure on health tourism comes at a time when both the health service and England’s social care system are dangerously underfunded.
The £200million shortfall – the lower end of the estimated scale for uncollected cash – would fund care home places for 5,298 people based on an average cost of £37,752 per year. The crisis in social care is partly blamed for elderly patients being stranded in hospitals
- The documentary Hospital will be screened tonight at 9pm on BBC 2.
Article source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4178074/Health-tourism-chaos-draining-NHS.html