Crackdown on health tourists works... despite fury of doctors’ Left-wing union
A CLAMPDOWN on foreign women who fly in to give birth ‘for free’ on the NHS is proving to be a resounding success, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Since the spring all pregnant women giving birth at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, South London, have been required to prove they have lived in the UK for at least a year.
The drive – a trailblazing programme being rolled out across dozens of other hospitals – has led to a huge fall in the number umber of women from outside Britain attempting to obtain maternity care without paying.
Official NHS figures indicate the number of labour ward health tourists has dropped by at least 90 per cent at St George’s, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The results are a boost for the Government, which has vowed to get tough on a problem which is thought to cost the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds a year.
But they will be embarrassing for the Left-leaning British Medical Association, which has constantly criticised the idea.
Earlier this year, former chairman Dr Mark Porter said it was ‘hard to see’ how proposals to check eligibility for free hospital care ‘will operate in practice’.
Bosses at St George’s instigated the plan in February, requiring every pregnant woman to bring two pieces of paperwork – one form of identification such as a passport or driving licence, and a utility bill confirming that they had lived at a UK address for at least a year.
Officials did so after admitting the problem of expectant mums who fly in to take advantage of safe NHS maternity services was out of control – and costing their hospital dearly.
A year ago they estimated that around 900 women who gave birth at St George’s in 2015-16 should have been charged. Most have not paid up. The average birth costs the NHS at least £1,000, but that can soar if there are complications. One Nigerian mother who flew in to give birth at another London hospital, St Mary’s, racked up a £500,000 bill.
Managers at St George’s estimated they were losing £4.6 million a year to health tourism, of which maternity was thought to account for the biggest chunk. It is still owed £1.75 million from fly-in mothers.
They admitted the hospital was seen as an ‘ easy target’, with fixers even ‘offering paid assistance to women in Nigeria to have their babies for free’ there. We also told last year how EU nationals were milking the NHS for expensive cancer treatments. Now results of a 15-week pilot showed managers only needed to charge 18 patients – suggesting word quickly spread about the crackdown. The 18 – about one per cent of all mothers treated – ‘failed to provide eligibility’ for free NHS care so were billed, according to an internal report. S Scaled l up, it means the hospital can expect to charge about 62 overseas labour ward patients a year – less than a tenth of the previous figure. The hospital has started a scheme in neurology, while it has proved so successful it is being rolled out to the ‘entire trust’, the papers show.
A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘We have no problem with overseas visitors using our NHS as long as they make a fair financial contribution.’