Immigrants (NHS Treatment)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend makes a reasonable point. Part of the problem is that when we should be identifying someone as a foreign national who should pay for their NHS care, that does not happen a lot of the time because of the incentives in the system. Under the NHS improvement initiative, which is taking place in London at present—it is worth looking at that closely, because it has a lot of promise—there is a centralised collection of debt from foreign nationals who owe the NHS so that that does not become the responsibility of individual hospitals, which is something that is putting them off registering people as eligible for their NHS care.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I invite the Secretary of State to comment on the view that one of the reasons why these proposals are being made at this stage is the conclusion of transitional arrangements for Romanians and Bulgarians at the end of this year? The Minister for Immigration is sitting on his right. Is it possible for the Health Department and the Home Office jointly to commission research so that we can have some actual figures on how many people might be coming at the end of this year?

[Mr Hunt]

The right hon. Gentleman will have to raise the matter of the actual number of people coming to the UK with the Home Secretary or, indeed, the Minister for Immigration.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that the issues that we are dealing with are not just about foreign nationals from outside the EU or the European economic area. The rules for EEA members are complex. If people come here to work, we have an obligation under EU law to allow them access to free treatment, but if they are economically inactive or if they are temporary visitors, we should be able to reclaim the cost of that treatment from their home country in the EEA. The fact is that we do that very poorly indeed at the moment and that is one of the things we need to change.