Liverpool GP told to deliver deportation letter to patient

Home Office officials sent a “disturbing” letter to an NHS GP asking them deliver a deportation notice to a patient at their next mental health appointment. Doctors, charities and politicians shared their outrage at the decision on social media, calling it “completely unacceptable”. It comes as MPs told the Government to end a deal between the Home Office, Department of Health and the NHS that sees patient data handed over to immigration officials to trace migrants.

The letter – which was sent to the Liverpool GP surgery in August 2017 but has only now come to light – states that the patient was seeing the GP “fortnightly” for a mental health problem and, in light of this, the letter should be served at the patient’s next visit. The practice refused the request from the Visas and Immigration government department at the time and raised it with Home Office officials, saying this was not the GP’s role.

This week, the letter, with the practice’s name and any potentially identifiable data redacted, was passed on to the local branch of the British Medical Association (BMA). Dr Rob Barnett, secretary of the Liverpool Local Medical Committee, said the case had been “very disturbing” for the practice. He said the practice had not passed on any details of the patient’s treatment history to the Home Office, or provided any evidence in relation to the patient’s immigration claim.

The letter seen by Dr Barnett reads: “It’s with great regret that [the patient’s] application of leave to remain in the United Kingdom has been refused. From evidence submitted to the Home Office, [the patient] is attending [the practice] fortnightly. On [the patient’s] next visit to [the practice] could you serve the refuse decision. This is due to the patient’s ongoing mental health.”

Dr Barnett told The Independent: “This is not a GP’s role. This will do nothing to enhance any doctorpatient relationship and is potentially disastrous in the way some people will view GP practices – which is why the practice didn’t want to have anything to do with it. It’s the GP’s job to look after the health of patients, not to act as some kind of border agency. It clearly has been very disturbing for the practice.”

Dr Richard Vautrey, chair of the BMA’s GP Committee, said it would be raising this case with the Home Office to prevent it happening again. “It’s completely unacceptable for the Home Office or any immigration service to do this,” he said. “GPs are not an extension of the immigration service, they have an important relationship to maintain with their patients and they shouldn’t be put in this situation or asked to do these sorts of things. I’ve never heard of it before. I don’t know why they thought it was something a GP could do, but it’s clearly an inappropriate request and I hope we don’t see it happen again.”

Green Party assembly member Sian Berry also said the case was “very disturbing in several ways”. While

campaign group Docs Not Cops, which has also pushed back against the NHS data sharing deal with the Home Office, wrote: “The Home Office thinks that doctors, nurses and midwives can be told to do their dirty work. We need to tell them that WE REFUSE. We are here to work in patients’ best interest.”

The Home Office said it did not recognise the description of the letter, but refused to say whether it was looking into why it had been sent in this case.