Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 19th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I echo the points made by the two previous speakers and will just point to one further reason why having an annual report with this level of detail is important for the future of monitoring any reciprocal agreements. In 2016-17 the National Audit Office published its report on the recovery of the costs of NHS treatment for overseas visitors, which makes fascinating reading. It includes how the amounts recouped, whether by reciprocal agreement or direct payment by the patient, had increased and by which type of trust. It is clear that unless that sort of detail is monitored regularly, we will not understand the consequences of changes to reciprocal agreements. I propose to talk more about this report in the next group of amendments, but that transparency means that we need an understanding of exactly how having these agreements will work and if, as was apparent when the report was written, more than 22 trusts never reported any cases under the EHIC scheme. It shows that there is an enormous differential between trusts in how they collect money owed to the Government in one form or another.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps I may add briefly to the very important comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I am concerned about not only how the data is collected in this country but how we can verify costs that may be charged to this country by other countries with which we have reciprocal arrangements. One of the difficulties with healthcare costs is the way they are calculated. There may be individual costs of bits of equipment and staff time, but then there will be overall management costs, which may simply be divided up among the number of patients or even in a more arbitrary way. I am concerned, and seek assurance from the Government, that verification procedures will be put in place to make sure that bills received by the UK fairly represent the terms of an agreement.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, in Amendment 15 the noble Baronesses, Lady Wheeler, Lady Brinton and Lady Finlay, and my noble friend Lord Dundee raise an important issue on the importance of financial reporting and facilitating parliamentary scrutiny, which I can assure noble Lords that the Government are committed to ensuring. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, said, this was also the subject of Labour Front-Bench amendments in the Commons and is an issue that the Government have carefully considered. I would like to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, and my noble friend Lord Dundee that—as the Minister, my noble friend Lady Blackwood, set out at Second Reading—the Government are committed to openness in managing public money. I understand the desire for transparency in this area. Noble Lords can be reassured that, as indicated by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, there are existing robust annual reporting processes, overseen by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, that are used today and cover reciprocal health and other departmental spending.

Expenditure by the Department of Health and Social Care relating to EU reciprocal healthcare arrangements is currently published to Parliament in the form of annual resource accounts, and this will continue. This reporting allows for scrutiny by both Houses of Parliament, as well as the Public Accounts Committee. As now, the department’s future expenditure on reciprocal healthcare will be subject to the existing government reporting requirements. However, the Government have heard the need for greater transparency in our administration and implementation of reciprocal healthcare arrangements. The Government are also committed to transparency and the prudent use of public money. This is why we have committed to going beyond the current reporting requirements.

As explained by the Minister, my noble friend Lady Blackwood, at Second Reading, the Government have committed to issuing an annual ministerial Statement on the operation of the reciprocal healthcare arrangements. The noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, asked what this ministerial Statement would include. I am afraid that I cannot comment on that, because it is subject to any arrangements we enter into with the countries concerned. The Statement will be published as soon as is practical at the end of each financial year. It will include, but will not be limited to, reporting on the expenditure and income of reciprocal arrangements as a whole. This could include aggregated expenditure and income for the year, as well as country-by-country sums of expenditure and income. It could also provide an overview of the operation of arrangements, identifying areas of successful operation. I hope that that allays the fears that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, expressed. The types of reciprocal agreement entered into will determine the content of the Statement, as I said. However, I am happy to meet the noble Baroness to discuss these details further.

I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, and my noble friend Lord Dundee feel reassured on our commitment to ensuring that there are sufficient and appropriate checks and balances in place on reciprocal healthcare agreements and agree that it is not necessary to set out in the Bill detailed provisions on reporting. In any case, as I said, the frequency and detailed content of a financial report should and could only be determined once reciprocal healthcare agreements have been made. Currently, the UK and other EU member states are able to collect data and report both nationally as well as at EU level, as provided for in the relevant EU regulations.

The department is currently working to ensure that UK nationals can continue to access healthcare in the EU in the same way as they do now, either through an agreement at EU level or through agreements with relevant member states. In either case, we will have to agree how eligibility is evidenced, the way that and frequency with which information is exchanged and the reimbursement mechanisms that will govern these new agreements. Each of these could differ from country to country. Such agreements will have to take into account the operational possibilities and limitations of each contracting party to ensure the smooth operation of reciprocal healthcare arrangements. This should include how NHS trusts in the UK can evidence eligibility for the treatment of non-UK citizens in the most efficient and least burdensome manner. Once these administrative details are known, the Government will be able to confidently speak to the specific measures that can be reported for each country. It is therefore unnecessary to set out detailed reporting provisions in the Bill for aspects that are subject to negotiations.

It must not be forgotten, however, that regardless of the specifics of any arrangements entered into, as with all departmental expenditure, reciprocal healthcare costs are and will continue to be authorised by the Treasury supply process and included in the department’s annual estimates, as well as being included in the annual resource accounts, which, as I said, are audited by the Comptroller and Auditor-General.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, raised this issue, and it was raised earlier this evening. Let me be very clear that we do not need new front-line NHS processes to charge visitors and tourists from the EU, either directly or via reciprocal healthcare arrangements. We already have processes in place for non-EU visitors. After exit day, instead of identifying EU visitors for the purposes of EHIC claims, they will be identified for the purposes of whether they are chargeable directly or covered by a reciprocal healthcare arrangement, in the same way as non-EU visitors are currently identified. They will then be charged as appropriate.

I will end by saying this. As well as the auditing that will be done by the Auditor-General, as I have mentioned, the Government have committed to lay before the House an annual ministerial Statement, which will provide an additional check and balance on the Government’s reciprocal healthcare arrangements. I hope that I have a given sufficient assurances to noble Lords, and that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

Can the noble Baroness confirm whether she is absolutely confident that the current systems in place to pick up those coming from abroad who should not be treated on the NHS and who should be charged for their care are 100% effective? How many of those systems are not effective? I am concerned that, with a potentially increased number of people coming into the system, any system that is already not functioning well will just fall over unless more people are put in to administer it.

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, no one can ever be 100% confident, but we are putting in place robust charging mechanisms. Each trust has an accountable person to look at how charging is working. We are working very closely with NHS organisations to ensure that, where charging needs to take place, it is done effectively and efficiently.

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Clearly, some of this is covered by the guarantee that I have just referred to, which is extremely helpful. But the other worry is that trusts may, frankly, turn a blind eye if they are suddenly deluged with very large quantities of people under the threat of a no-deal Brexit. I look forward to the Minister’s response and I beg to move.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

I should declare my interest as a past president of the BMA and a current BMA member, because I would like to refer to its brief on this. The BMA has indeed highlighted the potential problem, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, set out, of having 27 reciprocal arrangements all containing different terms. This will inevitably put pressure on front-line NHS staff, who will be expected to be familiar with and administer these different arrangements.

There is an additional problem that the association has highlighted, however: if the 190,000 UK state pensioners who are signed up to the S1 scheme and living in the EU need to return to the UK to receive care, health services will face drastically increased demands and costs. The Nuffield Trust has calculated that if those individuals return to the UK for treatment, that could incur additional costs to health services of between £500 million and £1 billion per annum, and require an additional 900 hospital beds and 1,600 nurses to meet demand. That is quite apart from the additional medical and allied healthcare professional staff, and all the clerical and managerial staff. The potential pressure on services, which are already stretched to bursting point, cannot be ignored.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, the difficulty is in how the money is recouped, where it goes and who can use it, as well as in accounting for it. While we are talking about cost recovery, I shall pick up on general practitioners. It is difficult to know where that money goes and to whom it is reported. If it is the clinical commissioning group, would it be expected to bill the person, who may well have disappeared from the UK by the time any such processes go through? Receptionists are not familiar with billing. The complexity of administering a multiple arrangement scheme cannot be ignored.

My final question goes back to one I have raised previously about the devolved Administrations. Given that there are now different healthcare systems in the four countries of the UK, each administered and managed slightly differently, what discussions have the Government had to date about recouping costs both as they stand and in the event of a large influx of pensioners currently living and receiving treatment abroad?

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I knew that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, would make a very thorough job of moving this amendment, so I was not just being lazy but was making sure that the Committee got the best person to introduce it. The noble Baroness mentioned the BMA’s brief, to which I shall refer. While the amendment refers to NHS trusts, any funding incurred by primary care providers in administration of the new healthcare arrangements should also be met. As a member of a CCG, I think that probably means CCGs. That is quite important.