Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to ensure the provision of healthcare for UK pensioners living in the European Union post-Brexit.

The Government is committed to securing a deal with the European Union and is working in an energetic and determined way to achieve this.

The United Kingdom Government has proposed to all Member States that we should maintain existing reciprocal healthcare arrangements, including the S1 scheme, until 31 December 2020 if the UK leaves the EU without a deal. These arrangements would safeguard healthcare for the hundreds of thousands of UK-insured persons who live in Europe.

I laid a Written Ministerial Statement (HLWS1795) on 26 September 2019, setting out the Department’s progress on ‘no deal’ reciprocal healthcare arrangements, and updated information has been published online on the situation for each Member State, including what arrangements have been put in place. These pages will be kept updated as further assurances from Member States are received.