Health Services: Foreign Nationals
(asked on 8th June 2018) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the (a) costs recovered from foreign nationals who have received NHS treatment and (b) cost to the public purse of health tourism in each of the last three years.
It is not possible to provide an estimate of the cost recovered of treating foreign nationals who have received National Health Service treatment as patient nationality is not reported by NHS provider trusts.
The Department does not hold information on the cost to the public purse of health tourism.
However income identified from chargeable overseas visitors, including European Economic Area (EEA) and non-EEA nationals for NHS services for the subsequent years can be found in the table below which is also published in the NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts annual accounts.
| 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 |
Income from Chargeable Overseas Patients (£'000) | 46,797 | 69,246 | 81,402 |
Income from other European Union states for treatment of their citizens (£'000) | 50,045 | 58,572 | 86,066 |
Source: 2015-16 and 2016-17 NHS trust and foundation trust annual accounts