Secret Home Office policy to detain people with NHS debt at airport found unlawful

Why don't those who deem it unfair - pay the bills themselves in behalf of the international patients, instead of demanding other people fund it?

Why don't they take in the migrant young men and fund their lawyers.

I am fed up of mean people being generous with other people's money. It's like the environmental lot with gigantic carbon footprints lecturing us all. I have had enough of it.

Yeah so I can see no one on this thread works in public health. Just a quick rundown of how things work in the real world for you:

• it is far cheaper in the long run to treat anyone that needs it here. If they get sicker and end up in a&e they’ll get treated there. Emergency treatment and hospital stays are very, very expensive for the system compared to preventative treatment.
• there are many communicable diseases that are best to treat no matter what. If your policy is to refuse treatment because no insurance, guess what, it gets passed on to more people.
• The primary cost to the nhs is not migrants, in fact they don’t really factor in that much overall (most people bar some exceptions that make it here are in relatively good health because they come to work, and largely as younger people). The biggest burden is sicker, middle aged to elderly British citizens who have not paid in anywhere near enough over their lifetime to cover the care for the many chronic conditions we seem to have. This is particularly the case for lifestyle induced illnesses such as some forms of diabetes, COPD, heart failure etc (which often preclude further work and thus further paying into the system).
• The recovery rate of funds to the nhs is quite poor and costly to manage. The amount they recover whilst - frankly - hounding sick people on behalf of the British state (getting into morality here, but tell me that doesn’t feel even a little wrong) is barely covering the admin costs of recovery itself. It is performative, and thus pointless.

It really pisses me off that people aren’t able to think through how their views would work in practise. The money we’re talking about is negligible in a) government terms and b) the cost that we would rack up of not treating people.

Anyone advocating for an insurance style system also needs to wake up to the fact that the business model of all insurance is not to pay wherever possible. It doesn’t lead to people getting the treatment they need, because those companies will ensure loopholes are bedded into as much as humanly possible. Health insurance is often a requirement of going into many countries but anyone who has tried to actually access it abroad will know it’s smoke and mirrors. Medical insurance companies are run by ghouls.

Tl:dr, it’s more cost effective to treat everyone regardless of their residency status, and the people advocating for ‘stricter’ rules on this haven’t thought through the reality of what that means. At all. And it’s fucking annoying.

This.

Deliberately seeking out and accepting healthcare services, thus incurring charges that you were informed of in advance and then not paying for those services is indeed a type of fraud.

You are wrong about a tax bill that a person “can’t pay” - they are still prosecuted for nonpayment. Usually you are fined but some even go to prison.
https://taxscouts.com/self-assessment-basics/can-you-go-to-jail-for-not-paying-taxes-uk/

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/12/woman-jailed-council-tax-bill-she-could-not-pay

Maybe you can absorb £4.50 for a dozen eggs in Morisons online and egg shortages, not everyone can, and are pissed off at people taking the piss with taxpayers money. Whilst I feel for them as individuals they are not our problem, we are generous with overseas aid.

They get medical care, they don't want to pay for it.

We are not one world government, our government is to look after the interests of our nation like others do.

Tax has to rise during a cost of living crisis for young males coming here for free adventures (evident from the Albanins returned) as we fund hotels, lawyers etc, the UK is being taken for a ride.

Most women don't travel when pregnant.

This is what the healthcare surcharge is for. It needs to be paid at the same time as the visa fee. But it's possible for people to fall through gaps in the immigration system and end up not covered for a period of time. I outlined a couple of ways this can happen above.

In those circumstances do you think a woman in active labour should be shown the door?

If someone has a tax bill they can't pay they are not prosecuted. It's a debt, not a crime.

If someone deliberately evades tax or commits tax fraud they will be prosecuted.

If someone has a benefit overpayment that they can't pay back they are not prosecuted. It's a debt, not a crime.

If someone commits benefit fraud they will be prosecuted.

The difference is not which way the money is moving between government and individual, the difference is the deliberate fraud.

Maybe having medical insurance should be part coming into the country. There is definitely evidence of medical tourism and that needs to stop.

What do you think would happen in other countries who that insurance based medical treatment?
Lots of people on here seem to want to move to an insurance based NHS and maybe they have a point.

@ReleasetheCrackHen no worries, I was hoping it might be me who was out of date and that they’d now made an exception for maternity care. Should have known they wouldn’t have done that!

Yeah, I’ve just realised this morning that I am waaaay out of date, so sorry. 🫣

I have just read the new(er)regulations this morning. In my defence I was stuck in an airport, jet lagged and going slowly mad from fatigue and frustration over delays. So sorry everyone.

It used to be the case that maternity care was covered and for the record I think it should be overturned back to how it was. It’s unfair on women. That is definitely discriminatory.

I’ve just read the 2015 regulations as they removed and added exemptions and I now think the woman from Mali, SXB, who had suffered FGM should have zero NHS debt for her miscarriages and stillbirth to the NHS, as the explanatory memo states that “any maternity care” should be covered free of charge for victims of FGM

I wonder why the high court didn’t even look at the validity of these women’s debts?

And I remember seeing a documentary where a woman from Africa had been enroute to Canada but went into labour so was chucked off the plane at London. She had triplets or possibly quads who were all in the NICU. She on paper had a huge bill, hundreds of thousands of pounds and she was hounded by the overseas payment team while in hospital.

in the same programme a foreign man had had a stroke and was really sick in hospital and they were hounding his son at the bedside to pay the bill, literally took a card machine to him and said how much can you pay. I remember being shocked at that, not only the timing but also it wasn’t the son’s bill!

I don’t think that’s correct. I work as a midwife and I remember once getting a phone call as a junior midwife from the hospitals overseas patient team asking me if we had any overseas patients. I told them we had a Canadian woman on the ward, they asked for her details which I gave and they told me to go and tell her she owed I think 8k.

In my stupidness I went and told her when really I should have refused to get involved. She was hysterical, she thought because her husband was English she didn’t have to pay but apparently she did as she hadn’t lived here long enough. I rang the overseas team back and told them they’d have to talk to her as i couldn’t explain it all. They did and were firm with her that she owed the money and would have to work out a repayment plan. 🤷‍♀️. That was for antenatal care and labour. Was about 15 years ago.

Numerous studies have shown that when you have an offender on convicted of the exact same offence under almost identical circumstances with almost identical consequences and the same criminal histories male offenders are far more likely to be handed a custodial sentence than are female offenders and even when female offenders are given a custodial sentence, they are on average much shorter. ]

This is untrue - in fact the opposite has been shown - eg. first hit on google.

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/gender-differences-sentencing-felony-offenders

TV License evasion disproportionately affecting women, and I would think the same applies to healthcare, is because women were home with the kids more, so likely to be the ones opening the door. For NHS care, there's the fact that women have a whole section of possible health requirements around pregnancy and childbirth that men don't and, obviously then, are more likely to be the ones caught for non-payment for a child's care.

Except that basic maternity including childbirth falls under the A&E exemption that is free to everyone. No woman, illegally here, health tourist or otherwise would run up a debt for coming here or being here and going into labour and needing hospital care for childbirth. No woman going pregnant to a GP illegal or tourist will run up an NHS debt for prenatal care unless they are referred for anything other than emergency care at an A&E.

BUT again, it’s life and limb threatening so if a woman suffers birth injuries like the women from Mail did due to FGM and then got them repaired on the NHS then yes, she’d run up a debt getting the birth injuries repaired that are not life or limb threatening. I’m not talking a basic stitching, they’d not leave a gaping wound anywhere nor would they allow an infection to continue, I’m talking corrective surgery or solving incontinence or prolapse would run up a debt.

No, they’re not theft because not you’re not stealing from the Government, those crimes are Benefit fraud. But tax evasion and tax fraud are crimes because you are failing to pay a debt you owe the government because it is YOUR money that YOU OWE to the Government. You are not TAKING money FROM the Government. FFS didn’t think I’d have to explain the difference between a debt and theft.

You don't have to have 'some deep understanding' to work out why men in general end up in prison at many times the rate of women. You can just look at the offending rates.

You don't need to have 'some deep understanding' of why this policy unfairly discriminates against women. You can just look at who ends up with NHS debts and how they are incurred.

That all makes sense.

The case is about unlawful detention and this is far more likely to happen to women than men. Theoretically a man or a woman could be held because of an unpaid NHSBSA debt but it's far more likely for women because as well as the normal illness / injury risks, women get pregnant and give birth so they are far more likely to have a debt.

The age discrimination is an interesting angle that I haven't thought about.

What always astonishes me is that the 'NHS is for British people' lot never stop to consider that many of these babies are British, even if their mothers are not.

Reading the ruling:

• Paragraph 9, the claimant SXB's costs were related to miscarriages, so maternity related.
• Para 38a, some medical care is available to everyone for free, regardless of immigration status.
• Para 38c, maternity care is not available to NRPF immigrants.

Given that only women can be pregnant, the failure to give free mat care is sexist. Given that only children can be newborns, the failure to give free mat care is also ageist against the youngest possible people, who are amongst the most vulnerable in society.

Thank you for finding this, I'll read it through tomorrow.

A PCP that affects both sexes but disproportionately affects women can also be sex discrimination.

This is what indirect discrimination means.

This is why equality impact assessments are important and need to take into account not only how different groups might be affected but also how they are affected in real life.

I found the ruling in Bailii. https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2023/1272.html

Not read it yet because it's really long and I only just located it.

And obviously, no British women are dumping their pregnant husbands with LLR and NRPF.

And there's your grounds for arguing that the policy is sexist: only women can be pregnant and run up maternity-related costs if dumped by a British spouse.

Do you think women should be shown the door when they are in active labour?