Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that exemptions to charging under the NHS (Charges to Overseas Visitors (Amendment) Regulations 2017 and as set out in his Department's accompanying guidance are being applied to qualifying patients.

The Department has made information on the rules around entitlement to free National Health Service treatment publicly available for several years. The Department has issued guidance to providers of NHS funded secondary care that sets out the rules and best practice processes to follow to identify chargeable patients where no exemption from charge category applies to either the patient or the type of service they are accessing. This guidance is publicly available on Gov.uk.

The rules around charging overseas visitors for NHS care, including the list of exemption categories, are also set out for the public on NHS Choices, so that patients can be aware of their chargeable status prior to accessing NHS care. We continue to work closely with the NHS on best methods of communicating more effectively to patients, including revising guidance, translated letters in foreign languages, tools and support frameworks to support NHS providers and frontline staff, to ensure patients are made aware of the Charging Regulations.

Where an NHS patient is unhappy with the healthcare they have received, it is right that they, or someone on their behalf and with their consent, can use the NHS complaints procedure. Relevant providers need to ensure that they and patients charged for NHS services are aware of the complaints procedure and that there are effective operational links with the organisation’s complaints manager that reflect the extant guidance on managing complaints.

If a patient considers that they have been charged incorrectly, they should collaborate with the overseas visitor manager to discuss on what basis they have been found to be chargeable and whether the provision of further documentary evidence is required. Where there continues to be a disagreement about how the Charging Regulations have been applied to a particular patient, the patient may want to seek the services of the relevant body's Patient Advice and Liaison Service.

The NHS complaints procedure can be found at NHS Choices:

https://www.nhs.uk/nhsengland/complaints-and-feedback/pages/nhs-complaints.aspx