£35m bill for health tourists who come to Britain for free healthcare (7)

Health tourists have taken at least £35million of free treatment over the last eight years.

That is the sum health service bosses have written off after foreign patients came to the UK for treatment – and left without paying.

The Department of Health is still trying to recover millions more from thousands of others who have abused British hospitality, so the real figure could be far higher.

Somebody has to pay: Health tourists have run up a £35m bill over eight years for free treatment before returning to their countries of origin without paying.

The statistics, revealed in a written Parliamentary answer by health minister Simon Burns, show that the amount lost to health tourism is rising dramatically.

More than £6.9million was written off last year, more than three times the £2.1million lost in 2002-03.

Mr Burns said the figures covered ‘total audited losses, bad debt and claims abandoned for overseas visitors’ in England.
‘As well as written-off debt for foreign nationals who are not ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom, these data include written-off debt for UK nationals who are not ordinarily resident here,’ he said.

‘It does not include monies owed that hospitals are still in the process of attempting to recover.

Debt: Tory Health Minister Simon Burns discovered the statistics

‘The Department does not hold data on the nationality of overseas visitors treated.’

Tory MP Chris Skidmore, who sits on the House of Commons health select committee and uncovered the figures, voiced concerns about the scale of the handouts to overseas patients.

He said: ‘The NHS is not an international health service. It is funded by taxpayers who deserve to ensure that money spent on healthcare is spent on those who invest in the NHS.

'We cannot continue to fund health tourism in this way. This is £35million which could have been spent on front-line resources and improving patient care.’

Entitlement to free NHS hospital treatment is based on a patient being ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK.

Anyone else will be charged for the full cost of any treatment they receive unless an exemption applies to the particular therapy.

While treatment in an accident and emergency department is automatically free to all, emergency care elsewhere is not. However urgent treatment, such as maternity care, will always be given regardless of residence status or ability to pay afterwards.

Hospitals must then take reasonable measures to recover any debt and most have specific managers to do this.

Non-urgent treatment for chargeable overseas visitors is not supposed to go ahead without full payment first.


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This annoys me. When I'm in Italy working, I'm expected to pay my own medical bills, the same as when I'm in America.

This more than likely will be classed as a BNP rant, but it's my own opinion.

So, why do we have to pay for other nationalities to have their treatment here? Insurance can (and should be) claimed back.
We usually take insurance when visiting other countries, so make it essential to have it entering the UK.

I had to have emergency treatment once in America, and they wouldn't let me leave the hospital until my bill was settled.

It should be the case here. Make them pay, or they get detained and do community service to pay the bill.

Don't worry - it is certainly not a BNP rant at all. Most, if not all, would agree with you.
What annoys me is you hear that people in their last days because of illness and pain are suffering because the Health Service finds certain medications to ease their pain or cure their condition costs too much, yet £35m is wasted on people who have never contributed to this country's coffers.

WEll said
I had to pay in advance abroad on admission for treatment!! No wonder the NHS is in the state it is.
Now they do not even take the crutches back, its unhygenic eh!! who needs them when a leg is better?? surely they can steralise them and give them out again, I remember when you paid a deposit on them and got it when they were returned. Now no what is one to do with crutches? keep them in case they break a leg!!

Well people could keep the crutches as their knee or hip joints could be giving them grief in another 20 years time?!!!

There was a thread running in the International section and in it the American posters were worried about health care bills and/or the cost of health insurance.

I think we are fortunate here - very fortunate in fact. I worked in the NHS and since it has been run more like a business with targets to meet things have improved in lots of ways but of course other things have got worse.

Cancer screening programmes for instance are brilliant. If cancer runs in your family certain types of cancer can be screened for in family members - obviously prevention being better than trying to cure the disease.

If the NHS could stop this fraudulent problem of tourist treatment then of course the extra money saved could help those who so deserve it.