Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect on (a) health inequalities and (b) public health and prevention of introducing charges to non-UK citizens using the NHS.

All National Health Service trusts and foundation trusts in England already have a statutory responsibility to make and recover charges from patients who are not ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom and are chargeable for their healthcare.

Following a detailed public consultation that ran from December 2015 to March 2016, the Government set out in its response to that consultation in February 2017 that it intended to amend the existing Charging Regulations, alongside a published impact assessment. Over the course of the consultation and decision-making process the Government carefully considered the impact the changes may have on public health, health inequalities and on vulnerable groups, which included children and individuals in receipt of maternity services. The Secretary of State has a continuing duty to consider the impact of policies on equality issues and so this will remain under review.

The amendment regulations maintain the existing exemptions in place for the purposes of protecting the public’s health and do not change our position of ensuring that the most vulnerable have access to free healthcare. This includes children looked after by a local authority.

The requirement for upfront charging will not apply in the case of treatment that clinicians consider immediately necessary, or otherwise urgent (such that it cannot wait until the overseas visitor can reasonably be expected to return home). This means that chargeable overseas visitors will never have immediately necessary treatment, or urgent treatment withheld or delayed pending payment. All maternity services continue to be considered urgent or immediately necessary and so will never be denied.