Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department will make an estimate the cost of a waiver on the NHS surcharge for non-EEA citizens working in the NHS.

The Department has not made an assessment of the effect of the National Health Service surcharge for non-European Economic Area (EEA) migrants on the recruitment and retention of non-EEA NHS staff and we have no current plans to make an estimate of the cost of a waiver on the NHS surcharge for non-EEA citizens working in the NHS. Whilst the Government fully recognises the contribution that international professionals make to the United Kingdom and to our health service, it is only right that people who come to the UK for more than six months should contribute to the running of the NHS.