Health Services: Foreign Nationals
(asked on 11th July 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will estimate the amount accrued to the public purse of measures to recover the costs of using the NHS from overseas nationals in each of the (a) next and (b) last five years.
The National Health Service is a national, not an international, service. This Government was the first to introduce tough measures to clamp down on migrants accessing free NHS care, including introducing the immigration health surcharge.
The initiatives we have implemented have meant the income identified from visitors and migrants has trebled from £81 million in 2011/12 to £290 million in 2015/16, the last year for which final figures are available. Amounts identified in each of the past years are shown in the following table.
| Aggregate identified cost recovery income | ||||
| 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 |
Aggregate £m | 81 | 89 | 100 | 97 | 290 |
The amounts identified for the 2016/17 financial year will be made available once NHS trusts and foundation trusts have published their annual accounts.