Government must recover money from health tourism, PAC says

A report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has concluded that the system for retrieving costs from overseas patients is ‘chaotic’ and has called for more to be done to recover the money.

Meg Hillier, chairwoman of the PAC, warned that the Department of Health (DH) needed to ‘do more to promote public confidence that the money due to the

NHS is being recovered, and that the system is fair to taxpayers and to patients who are entitled to free care’.

The report highlights that while GP appointments and A&E care are free to all patients including some refuges and asylum seekers, statutory regulations require hospital trusts to make and recover charges in respect of the cost of treating overseas visitors.

It also added that other parts of the health system—such as NHS England and clinical commissioning groups—have an important role to play and are not yet doing enough to support cost recovery. The report recommended that the DH should ‘set out specific actions, milestones and performance measures for increasing the amount recovered from overseas visitors.’

Hillier 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 DH and NHS have much to do if they are to meet their target for cost recovery.

“That is why we are calling on the DH to set out a detailed action plan now. It must make clear what it will do to increase the amount recovered from overseas visitors, and who will be accountable for achieving this.”

Responding to the PAC report, a Department of Health official 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.”