Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that patients who pay for their healthcare as a result of their immigration status are not charged for treatment for covid-19; and what monitoring his Department is undertaking on the charging for that treatment by hospitals.

Regulations came into force on 29 January 2020 to add COVID-19 to Schedule 1 of the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2015. This means there can be no charge made to an overseas visitor for the diagnosis, or if positive, treatment of COVID-19. This message has been disseminated to National Health Service staff, the public and organisations representing vulnerable migrant groups. It has also been published in forty languages on Public Health England’s Migrant Health Guide.

The Department does not monitor NHS trusts on the individual charges that are made to overseas visitors, or where exemptions for charge are given, for example for the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19.