Fire NHS chiefs incapable of collecting debt

REPORTS last week on the NHS’s £140 million bill for health tourism show the inability of our health trusts to implement in full the laws regarding the charging of those receiving treatment.

Any business can send out an invoice, but they would quickly go out of business if they did not collect the money. Except the health service, it appears. Why? Because they are supported by a bottomless pit of taxpayer money.

As your article states, laws requiring payment upfront for non-urgent treatment were brought in last year, so where is the problem? The health system is over-burdened with administrators, but few seem capable of debt collection. This needs to be rectified, and quickly. Why are we employing people who do not fulfil their employment contracts and job descriptions?

There is a foolproof system to deal with payment and that is ‘no treatment until the money is in the bank’. Staff may think that as long as they take a credit card number from a patient then the matter is solved, but until that money is banked, there is no guarantee that the bill will be paid.

Make trusts accountable for the collection of the cash and those staff incapable of collecting the money should be fired. Tony Webb, Plymouth The problem outlined in your article concerning the inability or, in some cases, a lack of determination of NHS trusts to recover medical expenses from overseas visitors could be fixed at a stroke. The Government should introduce legislation to prevent any non-EU citizen entering the UK without valid and appropriate health insurance cover.

There would be a cost as the Border Force would need more staff to check insurance with the passport, but the savings should far outweigh this and we would no longer be the free healthcare destination of the world. Stafford Trendall, Overton, Hampshire The NHS should be for the taxpayers and limited to those who make a fair contribution, and to preserve this it has made changes in the screening of overseas patients. But whatever they do, it is going to be very hard to recover all the money that is spent on some patients. If people are using false names and details, for instance, it will be a real challenge to track them down. V. de Bheal, London Earlier this year, my wife and I went to Tenerife, where unfortunately it was necessary for me to have a private hospital visit. On arriving, the first thing asked of me was: ‘Passport, please.’ Luckily, I had a European Health Insurance Card, which enabled me to get my treatment free, although I did subsequently pay for the prescribed drugs.

Why is it not possible for our hospitals to ask for a passport, National Insurance number and other details before any treatment is administered? To the man in the street this seems to be an easy solution, instead of hoping to recoup fees from someone who has just disappeared. Philip Cotton, Eastchurch, Kent