Doubts over bid to charge foreigners for NHS care
A fresh drive to charge foreign nationals, including illegal immigrants, for National Health Service care has been announced by John Reid, the home secretary - but well ahead of the health department being able to say how that will work in practice. Mr Reid announced pilot schemes to be run in three unidentified trusts in which hospitals and GPs will be able to check patients' eligibility for free treatment against data held by the Border and Immigration Agency. Labour still claims that from 2008 all foreign nationals will have to have identity cards with records held on a national database.
The Department of Health rejected fears that the pilots would result in NHS medical records and information being made available to law-enforcement officers. A spokesman said "categorically" that the information flow would be one way - the immigration agency providing data to the NHS. "We will not be breaching [medical] confidentiality in any way, or handing over records or identity information to the Border and Immigration Agency."
"NHS trusts will only be able to approach the Border and Immigration Agency with the patient's explicit written consent, in order to establish their exact immigration status to help establish a patient's eligibility for free NHS care."
If a patient refused, an NHS trust would have to consult the existing 68 pages of guidance on how foreign nationals should be charged, a spokesman said.
The department was unable to say last night whether trusts would be asked to trawl a list of known illegal immigrants against NHS records, a spokesman saying that "the details of the pilots are still being worked on".
In 2003, John Hutton, then a health minister, promoted the idea of asking patients for utility bills or passports to prove residence, saying the introduction of a national ID card would make checking eligibility "much easier".
But NHS trusts have been reluctant to take on the bureaucracy of such checks, with the health service having no clear idea of how much "health tourism", or the supply of NHS care to foreign nationals, costs.
In the past, the British Medical Association has said it would be "totally unjustifiable" to try to charge impecunious failed asylum-seekers who have no money.
The Home Office appears to regard the pilot schemes as a potentially important building block in the development of the government's ID-card system. But Connecting for Health, the NHS information technology programme, has consistently rejected the idea of using such cards to establish entitlement to treatment.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/12fe3d10-cd1a-11db-a938-000b5df10621.html
Health Direct warns that the spin of setting up three pilot schemes, is just that. There appears to be no extra money, no new processes and no extra staff to run the checks- either at the NHS's or Police's end.
Congratulations John "not fit for purpose" Reid- you did nothing about this when you were the health Secretary, why waste our time now that you are trying to brown nose with the chancellor?
The Department of Health rejected fears that the pilots would result in NHS medical records and information being made available to law-enforcement officers. A spokesman said "categorically" that the information flow would be one way - the immigration agency providing data to the NHS. "We will not be breaching [medical] confidentiality in any way, or handing over records or identity information to the Border and Immigration Agency."
"NHS trusts will only be able to approach the Border and Immigration Agency with the patient's explicit written consent, in order to establish their exact immigration status to help establish a patient's eligibility for free NHS care."
If a patient refused, an NHS trust would have to consult the existing 68 pages of guidance on how foreign nationals should be charged, a spokesman said.
The department was unable to say last night whether trusts would be asked to trawl a list of known illegal immigrants against NHS records, a spokesman saying that "the details of the pilots are still being worked on".
In 2003, John Hutton, then a health minister, promoted the idea of asking patients for utility bills or passports to prove residence, saying the introduction of a national ID card would make checking eligibility "much easier".
But NHS trusts have been reluctant to take on the bureaucracy of such checks, with the health service having no clear idea of how much "health tourism", or the supply of NHS care to foreign nationals, costs.
In the past, the British Medical Association has said it would be "totally unjustifiable" to try to charge impecunious failed asylum-seekers who have no money.
The Home Office appears to regard the pilot schemes as a potentially important building block in the development of the government's ID-card system. But Connecting for Health, the NHS information technology programme, has consistently rejected the idea of using such cards to establish entitlement to treatment.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/12fe3d10-cd1a-11db-a938-000b5df10621.html
Health Direct warns that the spin of setting up three pilot schemes, is just that. There appears to be no extra money, no new processes and no extra staff to run the checks- either at the NHS's or Police's end.
Congratulations John "not fit for purpose" Reid- you did nothing about this when you were the health Secretary, why waste our time now that you are trying to brown nose with the chancellor?
Labels: charges, health direct, ID cards, John Reid, NHS
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