Pregnant and poorly migrants ‘too scared’ to see doctor

A deal between the NHS and the Home Office to trace immigration offenders is putting pregnant women and slavery victims at risk, MPs have been warned.

Parliament’s health committee has been warned by health experts of the dangers of the data-sharing agreement, saying many migrants in need of healthcare are too scared to see a GP for fear of deportation.

Migrant domestic workers in abusive employment have suffered because they were too frightened to seek medical help, Marissa Begonia, the coordinator at Voices of Domestic Workers, said.

Some are turning up to A&E wards where they do not have to hand over their personal information. This method of accessing healthcare is much more expensive for the NHS than seeking antenatal care.

The day the Home Office is accessing is reached through NHS Digital, which runs the health service’s IT systems.

Patient confidentiality means their information should only be shared in cases of serious crime and does not cover immigration offences, but witnesses giving evidence to the committee claimed this confidentiality was being breached by NHS Digital.

Dr Lucina Hiam, a GP with Doctors of the World, told the committee: “Just this morning, somebody who was eight weeks pregnant was on the phone to our line in tears saying she was too scared to go to the GP, she was too scared to go to an antenatal clinic.

"Last week, we had a woman who was 17 weeks pregnant who wouldn't even give us her address - so we're trying to help her access healthcare, and we can't even do it because she's too scared of us.

"We often see pregnant women going to A&E, where they don't have to give their details, and use that as a route for healthcare.”

medConfidential, a patients’ rights organisation, told Sky News: “The price of any perceived breach of confidentiality is paid by GPs dealing with the problems that show up in their surgeries as they spread to everyone.

"That the government has forgotten about the importance of public health is not only politically paranoid and lacking perspective, but puts the entire population at risk by being penny-pinching but pound foolish."