Patient who left the NHS with £530k unpaid bill

THE row over health tourism was reignited last night after it emerged that one foreign patient has left the NHS with an unpaid bill of £530,000.

The unnamed patient, who arrived from outside the EU, is thought to hold the record for the most expensive bill for a so-called health tourist.

The previous highest was racked up by a Nigerian woman called Priscilla who jetted into Heathrow as she was pregnant with quadruplets.

The 43-year-old later confessed she had no way of paying a £331,000 bill after giving birth at St Mary’s Hospital in West London. It is thought the patient’s costs eventually reached £500,000.

The new highest bill – a total of £532,498 – was incurred by the former Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust.

A trust spokesman said: ‘Every attempt is made to identify eligibility for NHS treatment.’

It was one of three cases where a foreign patient cost an English NHS trust more than £300,000 in 2016-17.

Tory MP Andrew Percy said: ‘These are shocking examples which again show how the NHS is being taken for a ride by health tourism.

‘At a time when increasing demand is placing NHS staff under huge strain, people expect resources to be spent treating those who live in the UK and are actually entitled to its services.’