Giving birth as a UK citizen living abroad?!

[Beauteousmess]

I’m a British citizen living overseas, I want to give birth in the uk, I am aware that I am not covered by NHS, and will be covering the costs of delivery. I don’t want to go to a private hospital because they would be so much quite expensive and was hoping to give birth in an NHS hospital and cover the costs of delivery. I contacted a few hospital but it’s very hard to understand what I need to do as I am not registered with a GP. One of the hospitals I contacted told me they are not accepting private patients because of backlog due to covid. If anyone has experience with this I would be grateful. I know I could show up for delivery and they can’t refuse services, but I wish to have a more planned for delivery. I plan to arrive in the UK at 34 weeks and either stay with family (in the city where they said about backlog) or give birth in any part of the uk and rent a place for those few months.

Any advice would be helpful.

Omg, thank you so much for these resources, will check them out right away, your reply was very helpful. Have a lovely weekend.

Do you have private health insurance in the country where you live?

If yes, would your insurance cover maternity costs in the UK?

Would travel insurance with maternity coverage be an option?

@hedgehoglurker Basically you need 3 consecutive years of residency documented with evidence in your name. I lived in the UK from age 8 to 25. GCSE and A’Level certificates are not sufficient evidence of residency. They were unable to verify my NHS records so that was denied as evidence despite it showing a history. University attendance was declined as evidence because verification of home student status doesn’t qualify as a residency qualification and I was shy by 3 months of pay slips for working in the UK. Having a British drivers license from 17 was also denied as evidence.

I provided extensive evidence, yet my children were denied. I had to appeal, advocate through the MP in my family’s local area and hire a law firm to prepare the appeal. Knowing what I know now I would have had my children in the UK and called it a day.

@Beauteousmess when you register for residency it means you pay tax on your income in the UK. It’s far easier to pay double tax and keep it moving. Unless your a billionaire, I wouldn’t overthink it. Pay the tax to the UK, don’t tell where you currently live you are claiming residency in two countries at the same time and deregister when you are ready to move back. It has been the case for years that you are eligible for NHS care from the day you are resident if you are a British citizen. I don’t think Priti Patel has screwed with that yet.

My niece (she’s English and has a British passport) lives in a developing country in the Far East. She’s self employed so has no company expat package, but does have a local medical insurance plan.

However, she was pregnant with twins and hospital care is poor where she lives. She flew back to the UK at 29 weeks pregnant to stay with her parents. (

She had no problem getting booked in at the local county hospital maternity unit and for appointments with the Consultant/Registrar/midwives.

However, she did have to pay an £8000 deposit to the NHS. The plan was to induce her at 36 weeks, but at 35 weeks her waters broke and she was asked to go straight to the maternity hospital. The twins were delivered within 1.5 hours of arrival! (Not her first delivery as she already has a toddler).

The twins were in SCBU for a couple of weeks and they left hospital last weekend.

I will try to find out what the total NHS bill is when it is issued.

Btw: her toddler was born in a different NHS hospital in a different county where her parents used to live and where she grew up and was still registered with her GP from childhood. No charge was then made, but as someone has already pointed out, more checks on ‘health tourism’ are made nowadays- rightfully so!

Just as well her parents don’t live in the United States!

My 3 were born in the US. If you can’t afford care Medicaid kicks in to cover care during the pregnancy, delivery and after until discharged. Post discharge care for the baby is covered well in most states. New Jersey provides coverage automatically if the parents aren’t enrolled in a plan.

For my eldest we paid less than $1000 for delivery. My youngest cost about $6k for delivery thanks to Obamacare.

Thank you for this information, it’s good to know it might be easy to register when I get there.

@Beauteousmess - just an update to my previous post upthread.

My niece received an NHS bill (which she has paid) for 26,500 pounds.

This was however for the (vaginal) delivery of twins and they had to stay in the Special Care Baby Unit for approx 2 weeks. I forgot to ask if this also included visits from the midwife and health visitor (at her parents’ home) after being discharged from the hospital.