Maternity Services: Proof of Identity

(asked on 18th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effect of ID checking within maternity units by (a) Barts Health NHS Trust and (b) other Health bodies on (i) public health including infectious disease control and (ii) individual health outcomes.


Answered by
Stephen Hammond Portrait
Stephen Hammond
This question was answered on 26th March 2019

The Department conducted a pilot between May and October 2017 during which 19 National Health Service hospital trusts, including Barts Health NHS Trust, participated in pilots to trial the effectiveness of requesting two forms of identification from patients in improving the identification of those not entitled to NHS funded treatment.

The evaluation assessed whether requesting two forms of identity delayed, deterred or prevented patients who did not have proof of identity documents but were entitled to NHS services free of charge from accessing healthcare. Nobody was denied or prevented from accessing healthcare as a result of the identification checks, even where a patient did not have identification.

Following the conclusion of this pilot, there has been no further work on identification pilots undertaken by the Department. However, some trusts may continue with local schemes.

There is no requirement on NHS staff to check a patient’s identification and asking for, or providing, identification is not a requirement of the Charging Regulations 2015 (as amended). It is up to providers of NHS care to assure themselves that they do everything reasonable to determine a patient’s eligibility for NHS-funded healthcare.

Reticulating Splines