Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to tackle fraud relating to European Health Insurance Cards.

The Department takes any allegations of fraud and abuse seriously and works with the National Health Service on an on-going basis to detect and tackle any suspected fraud relating to the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC).

We have introduced a raft of measures to tighten up systems and procedures, both for issuing EHICs and checking the subsequent claims made to the United Kingdom. These measures include requiring additional proof of entitlement, mandatory declaration and email verification processes.

The Department is also undertaking a major system redesign project which aims to strengthen existing processes. Reducing further the potential for fraud and error is one of the key objectives of this work.