Overseas patients owe £1.2m to NHS
Health board bill could fund another 90 nurses
SCOTTISH health boards are chasing unpaid bills totalling more than £1.2million for treating foreign patients on the NHS. The outstanding payments could be used to employ almost 90 nurses f or the health service.
However, the bill for pursuing the money will be far higher than the amount owed, with many health boards forced to hire costly debt collectors.
Figures obtained from boards under Freedom of Information legislation show the scale of the expense incurred by people from other countries with infectious diseases.
One patient from Nigeria ran up a bill of more than £22,000 for treatment in an infections unit in the Grampian area.
Greater Glasgow and Clyde board has had to treat patients from 25 countries and is pursuing payments from five years ago.
Margaret Watt, of the Scotland Patients’ Association, said: ‘This is something we are very concerned about, because of the number of doctors, nurses and medical staff which could be bought for this £1.2million.
‘ The NHS i s very short of money for the staff it needs, while nurses are getting just a one per cent pay rise.
‘The people coming in from other countries should be required to have insurance, or a certain amount of money to help them afford healthcare.
‘They should not be able to just enter Scotland for an operation or treatment.’
From this year foreigners coming to Britain will be charged for NHS emergency treatment for the first time as part of a clampdown on health tourism.
There are concerns that pregnant women from other countries are travelling to the UK in order to have their babies, with one woman running up a bill of more than £2,500 in Lanarkshire for maternity services.
Migrants who go to A&E will be billed up to £100 for a consultation. Foreigners could also have to pay a £200 health tax in case they need treatment.
In total, the new figures show Scottish hospitals are chasing outstanding debts of £1,264,292.
NHS Lothian has seen patients
‘Cannot cater for health tourists’
from 38 countries in the past two years and is owed £209,668.
Greater Glasgow and Clyde is chasing £690,228 and Grampian £145,192.
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said: ‘No one wants to see people, from overseas or otherwise, turned away from the doors of our hospitals.
‘But the NHS has to be capable of ascertaining a foreigner’s ability to pay and how to ensure that payment arrives. That’s the situation that would face a UK resident in any other part of the world.
‘The NHS isn’t a charity, and simply cannot afford to cater for health tourists.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said the ‘vast majority’ of overseas visitors settle their NHS bill.
He added: ‘NHS boards have a duty to take all available actions at their disposal to recover the cost of NHS treatment from overseas visitors and there are a number of ways they can do this, including pursuing debt with the Central Legal Office, which has a contract with an international debt recovery company.
‘Boards must also pass full details of those with outstanding bills to NHS Scotland Counter Fraud Service, which will liaise with the UK Border Agency.
‘ Non- payers can t hen be refused re-entry to the UK until they settle their outstanding NHS health bill.’