Region’s NHS owed £1.3m by overseas patients
Health trusts are forced to use debt recovery agencies
HEALTH CHIEFS are resorting to using debt collectors to chase unpaid medical bills by overseas patients who are not eligible for free treatment on the NHS after costs in Yorkshire hit more than £1m last year.
As the NHS struggles to control its costs and faces cuts, The Yorkshire Post can reveal NHS trusts in Yorkshire and Humber have been chasing unpaid invoices totalling more than £1.3m from 2016-17.
Some, such as Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, have hired debt collectors to track down patients who are yet to pay. Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust had almost £224,000 in unpaid invoices from 2016-17 with patients from Botswana, Lithuania, Poland and the Netherlands among those yet to pay for treatment including maternity care, plastic surgery, cardiology and eye treatment.
Wakefield-based Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust said it was owed about £158,000 from overseas patients and Sheffield Teaching Hospital has an outstanding bill of £236,000.
Last year, amid growing anger over the use of the NHS by socalled health tourists, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced patients from overseas would be told to pay upfront for non-urgent treatment in a tough new stance to avoid crippling unpaid bills totalling millions of pounds nationally.
Since the rules changed, warnings have been made that busy NHS trusts would struggle to carry out all the checks needed and process payments from all overseas patients. Phillippa Hentsch, head of analysis for NHS Providers, which represents NHS trusts, said: “Although some trusts are making good progress at putting measures in place, we have to acknowledge that it is often difficult to identify patients who can be charged. Many trusts will need further support to ensure that they have the means and resources to meet these rules.”
Leeds said it routinely checked the residency status of patients and began charging upfront for treatments in 2015.
A spokesman said: “We will not turn away any patients who are not eligible for free NHS care as if the treating clinician decides a patient’s treatment is urgent or immediately necessary, then treatment will be provided regardless of an ability to pay. The trust uses a variety of methods to recover outstanding monies, including the use of debt recovery agencies where appropriate.”
Bradford said the majority of outstanding debt related to urgent care cases like life-saving trauma, cardiovascular or maternity care, and all avenues to recover this money continued.
Sheffield Teaching Hospital said it attracted a large number of overseas visitors because of its specialist services and almost all of the amount was related to emergency patients. Mid Yorkshire Hospitals said its finance team recovered the outstanding debts with its overseas visitor team. A Department of Health spokesman said: “The NHS is a national, not an international health service. Hospitals must make sure they charge people if they aren’t eligible for free care.”
The NHS is a national, not an international health service. Department of Health spokesman.
GIVEN PREVIOUS estimates that it costs the NHS £1.8bn a year to treat foreign patients taken ill in this country, it’s important – and in the public interest – for hospital trusts to recover this money if possible.
After all, these are funds which could otherwise be spent on priorities like cancer care – and the reason travellers are all expected to take out health insurance is to cover the cost of treatment in the event of sudden illness.
Yet, while medical staff would never turn away people in urgent need of treatment, they need to find a more effective way of recouping costs and stopping the exploitation of the NHS’s compassion and professionalism.
The fact that the main hospital trust in Leeds had £388,000 outstanding at the end of 2016-17 – and had already written off more than a third of this sum as a bad debt – shows the scale of the problem.
After all, the £1.3m said to be outstanding across Yorkshire alone as some trusts use public money to hire debt collectors could be spent on the pioneering new “one-stop shops” being launched to speed up cancer diagnosis.
Ten locations – including Airedale Hospital in this region – will trial a new scheme that will see GPs be able to refer patients complaining about ‘vague’ symptoms that may, or may not, be related to cancer.
The hope is some people will receive a definitive diagnosis, which could be crucial to their future treatment, or be given the all-clear on the same day, thereby easing the pressure on those GPs struggling to cope with the demands of a rising and ageing population. If the pilot works, funds should be found for its expansion nationwide.
And, while it should be pointed out that most overseas patients do cover the cost of their treatment, action should be taken against the small minority whose needs mean less money is available for priorities like cancer care.