Following the introduction of my Private Member’s Bill last year and my launching a petition signed by approximately 700 Crawley residents earlier this year, it was hugely rewarding to congratulate the Health Secretary in the House of Commons for listening to and acting on the measures outlined in the campaign aimed at properly recovering outstanding debts owed from foreign nationals who receive treatment through the NHS.
Hospitals have a duty to enforce the regulations and screen all patients for eligibility, applying charges where appropriate, but most do not, struggle to do so, or do not bother at all. After sending Freedom of Information Act requests to 445 Health organisations comprising of Primary Care Trusts, Foundation Trusts, Acute Trusts and so on, enquiring as to whether they screen foreign patients for auditing purposes, I became deeply concerned that only 105 Trusts were able to respond with data at all. Information, therefore, up until now has only supplied by less than a quarter of NHS organisations, and what data that did exist was patchy at best.
Britons travelling abroad expect to have to take out insurance if they need health care and so it is only fair on our taxpayers and patients that the NHS stops being an international health service.
The Health Secretary’s move will ensure that hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ pounds lost through outstanding debts will be returned and re-invested towards ensuring a better quality of health service for British patients.
More broadly, the Government is making sure that everyone who enters Great Britain pay their way and gives something back by:
· stopping our benefits system from being such a ‘soft touch’;
· making entitlement to our key public services something migrants earn – not an automatic right; and
· bringing the full force of government together to crack down on illegal working.
The Government will also introduce an expectation on councils to introduce a local residency test in determining who should qualify for social housing. This would mean someone would have to live in an area for say two or five years before they could even go on the waiting list.
In addition, key enforcement organisations will be brought together to form more local and national taskforces to target hotspots of high employment and housing abuse and there will be tougher action on rogue businesses who employ illegal workers by doubling maximum penalties to £20,000. Biometric residence permits will make it easier to identify illegal immigrants.