Passport checks considered for pregnant NHS patients

[LurkingHusband]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37621239

Pregnant patients could have to prove they are eligible for free NHS treatment by showing ID such as a valid passport, under plans being considered by one London hospital.
St George's says the checks would help tackle health tourism and would only be for non-urgent patients - emergency cases would get automatic care.
^It says such a move is in line with what guidelines recommend.
But critics say the checks could be potentially dangerous.^
St George's says it has a duty to use resources wisely, as well as provide care and treatment to patients requiring the hospital's services. The hospital has a high number of patients from overseas who are not eligible for NHS treatment.
The government said a pilot was a good idea and it would be keen to see the results.

(contd)

It is possible to precis the story as "The only thing worse than a foreigner, is a poor foreigner".

I don't think this is a new thing. There were posters in the waiting room and they checked this when I has my booking appointment almost 3 years ago. Unless it varies between nhs trusts?

Oh I don't disagree at all scary but I don't think the UK is set up that way at the moment. Maybe that's the problem? Like a PP I have been in the position of being given treatment to which I was not entitled at the time, tried/offered to pay and just been laughed at.... (Ostensibly on the basis that they "got their money's worth" out of DH who is a consultant for the NHS).

They definitely need to start checking - I am an expat and there are a few naughty ones who go home to take the piss give birth, despite no longer having any entitlement to access the NHS.

I find it absolutely gobsmacking that there are no checks in the UK to see if users of the NHS are actually eligible. I always pay for private cover when we are back home for holidays.

Health tourism is one issue, but targeting this at pregnant women is strange because the ones most likely to be affected are the babies of women who are illegally in the UK. They aren't health tourists and risking the lives of newborns seems a strange way to go about tackling health tourism.

Well I think it's a good idea. We have to pay for treatment anywhere else in the world. Why shouldn't visitors here? I remember watching a documentary with a Kuwaiti couple who were on "holiday" here whilst she was pregnant and ended up having the baby in hospital. The Kuwaiti government had to be chased for them to pay for treatment.

Feesh I also remember friends and colleagues who would go home to give birth for free. Some of them had been living abroad for years. I couldn't have been so cheeky.

Just have to step in and say that's it's not the case that care must be paid for up front in France. You have to give your details and you will be billed at a later date.
We have lived here 10 years. Father in law took ill while visiting a few months ago and was taken to hospital. This is what happened. The NHS through e111 or whatever it's called and his insurance covered it entirely.

of course they should check.
and some hospitals/gp's do.

when a relative badly broke his leg, the foreign offfice of the hospital was at the ward 5 min after submission.

submission = admission

It kind of happens already but the nhs just aren't very thorough at checking or following it up.

Everyone getting treatment is meant to have an nhs number. But we definetely see people/provide antenatal care to women who have no right to care. The idea is that they get a bill.

I remember one woman who had been declined asylum and wasn't entitled to any sort of benefit. So was pregnant, in a homeless shelter and living off shelter food. All us midwives at the hospital sorted out baby clothes, etc for her as she literally didn't have a penny to her name. She was getting antenatal checks. But obviously when the hospital sent her a bill at the end she was never going to pay.

Sometimes on the postnatal ward we get a phone call from a dept of the hospital who have the job of looking out for foreign patients. But the phone calls are very sporadic. They'll ask if there's anyone on the ward who isn't british. I remember when I was a student I told them that there was a Canadian lady on the ward and told them her name. Then I got a phone call an hour later telling me to go and tell her she wasn't entitlted to nhs care and they were sending her an invoice for approx 5k!!!!!

I now tell them I'm far too busy providing patient care to check up on who is british and who isn't.

What gizmo said.

When we were living overseas. We came back to the UK to get a diagnosis for our son at Great Ormond Street. Even though we were UK citizens we had to pay privately to be seen (this was fine, we were covered by insurance). If we had decided to move back to the UK at that point we would have been covered under the NHS, even though we hadn't paid national insurance for years.

In Canada when you move there you have to be live in the province for over 3 months before you are eligible for the free healthcare.

A system like Canada's would help new arrivals and also prevent potential abuse of the system.

As an emergency room nurse in Canada we photocopy all relevant info for the billing dept. to later sort.
Emergency treatment is not denied.
Some people b

If you apply for a Schengen visa you have to provide valid a travel/medical insurance policy at the same time. Its very simple to do and I don't understand why the UK don't also make it a requirement and not just because it will stop me wanting to spit peas every time someone says ah you brought your son here for free treatment

No nob head we didn't. Its costing an arm and a leg we are very happy to pay.

But that aside - its a cop out on behalf of the authorities that no one has the stomach to tackle the problem.

Having a British passport does not make you eligible for the NHS. Being a legal resident (which I was for many years before getting citizenship) which can include passport holders does. My GP surgery did ask to see that I was eligible for treatment. And my hospital referral went through the GP system.
Theoretically to get a British visa to come here you need to have insurance (on a tourist visa)- those on residence visas are obviously eligible for treatment.

Seems sensible to me. don't see a problem.

Also why assume all health tourists are poor? My friend's a City banker; his mother travelled from India to UK to get an eye operation done on the NHS. Because she could.

My parents (who are not British) are required to show that they have insurance when they apply for visas. I know because last time I was trying to negotiate insurance rates for them! And if you are a non-EU national resident in the U.K. and you want to travel to Europe on a Schengen visa then you need to provide travel insurance as well.

I now tell them I'm far too busy providing patient care to check up on who is british and who isn't

But it's not about being British, it's about being resident.

Hospitals might check the woman in a headscarf who doesn't speak English, but when I breeze in with an English accent I'm treated without question, despite the fact I haven't been resident for years and am not entitled to treatment. There isn't the stomach to check, as others have said.

Sorry, where I live you would be given emergency care but chased with the bill afterwards. And if it was routine care you required you would pay up front at the cash office before you even got to the relevant departmental waiting room. It does have its disadvantages though.

Theoretically to get a British visa to come here you need to have insurance

I dont recall it being required as in 'you must be in possession of travel/medical insurance when you apply for your Visa'. In fact I can't ever recall it coming up for any of my family or extended family when they've visited the UK. They are to all intents and purposes British but they identify as another nationality and thats the passport they use. Even when they've been overseas students in the Uk they have never been asked to provide insurance - but we always make sure they have it.

It just never comes up.

The only reason a lot of people want to live and work in the UK is that British imperialism was so successful that the vast majority of the world speak English as their first foreign language, so they imagine they'd have a better chance of fitting in, working and accessing education than in the myriad counties with better social safety nets and better healthcare but a first language they don't speak.

I've accessed health care in European countries without speaking the language or having an E111 or whatever on me at the time despite transparently being very much a foreigner, and the staff have even spoken English to me. I've also lived abroad during a pregnancy and given birth abroad in a system where healthcare is free at the point of use though paid for by a form of public insurance, and been told by the on/ gyne that the level of care I had received in the UK portion of my pregnancy sounded "third world".

yes, I do get that being resident is what's important. If that Canadian woman had lived here long enough/being married to her british husband a bit longer apparantly she would have been entitled to care.

But that is genuinely what I was asked by the hospital Foreign Dept, "have you got anyone who isn't british". To be honest 30% of our patients are Eastern European but they're all entitled to care. Maybe if I had continued the conversation I would have been asked for more details of the non british women.

Gizmo- I gather most of the people in the article were Nigerian, coming to St George's specifically to give birth. Presumably they head back to Nigeria straight after, assuming baby is safe to travel. You did imply people were after British passports, not sure why you then denied that.

If those ladies are paying someone to provide a birth service, and that person is getting them into NHS hospitals for free, then obviously that's a crime, theyve been defrauded and so has the NHS. How can providing evidence of entitlement be wrong? I suppose it depends on the scale of the problem, ultimately.

I think it could put vulnerable women off seeking care which is awful

tbh in europe the nhs has a reputation for being shit...