Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the amount (a) recoverable and (b) recovered by the UK through the European Health Insurance Card scheme was in 2013-14.

In 2013-14, the United Kingdom accounted for £29,900,000¹ to be claimed from European Economic Area countries for having provided National Health Service treatment to those temporary visitors who are insured under the European Health Insurance Card scheme.

We would expect this sum to be settled in full subject to minor adjustment to reflect any agreed rejection of individual invalid claims or adjustments to formula agreement calculations. However, settlement rules allow a period of 18 months for payments to be requested, reviewed and settled, so an actual recovered value for this claim is not available at this time.

¹Source: Resource Accounting and Budgeting (RAB) exercise. Totals are based on estimates of the costs of European Economic Area (EEA) healthcare claims made annually for the purposes of provision made in the Department of Health accounts in accordance with Treasury resource accounting rules.