Health Services: Reciprocal Arrangements

(asked on 7th September 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the independent report entitled Qualitative Assessment of Visitor and Migrant use of the NHS in England: Observations from the Front-Line, which was commissioned by his Department and published on 22 October 2013, what steps he has taken in response to the concerns about the application process for European Health Insurance Cards raised in that report; and when he was first informed about such concerns.


Answered by
Alistair Burt Portrait
Alistair Burt
This question was answered on 10th September 2015

The Department takes any allegations of fraud and abuse seriously and has been working with the National Health Service on an ongoing basis to detect and tackle any suspected fraud and error since the introduction of the online European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) application system in 2006.

The Department is tightening up procedures for issuing EHICs and checking EHIC claims to the United Kingdom.

The Department is already undertaking a major piece of work to examine and identify areas for improvement in all the administrative systems relating to European Economic Area healthcare payments, including the EHIC. The Department expects to complete this work by the end of the year.

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