Passport checks for patients is an abandonment of NHS principles

[Northerner]

Rather than use World Health Day to draw attention to global health priorities, this year, healthcare providers are being asked to implement racist government policies and compromise our professional values. Earlier this year, health minister Jeremy Hunt announced that, from April 2017, NHS trusts would be legally obliged to check patients’ eligibility for NHS services upfront, and to demand payment before providing care.

These checks lead to racial profiling and will prevent those most in need of care from getting the treatment they need. This is already evident with pregnant women delaying or avoiding seeking necessary medical advice or treatment because of fears they will be unable to pay or will be reported to the Home Office.

As doctors, we are acutely aware of the devastating impacts of delayed medical attention. In my field – obstetrics and gynaecology – we know that getting the right care at the right time is critically important for the health of women and their babies. In 2014, a woman thought to be carrying a dead foetus declined induction of labour because she feared she would be denied re-entry into the UK if she was unable to pay her bill of thousands of pounds.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...hecks-patients-nhs-principles-health-tourists

 

[mikeyB]

This is a distraction. Health tourism, as I have said before, is a microscopic cost to the NHS, and chiefly a London problem. This is a suspiciously large sledgehammer to crack a nut. Next thing, everyone will have to produce ID and evidence of insurance.

 

[macabee]

London problem or not, why should someone who has not [via taxes] paid into the NHS, receive non-urgent care that the rest of us pay for.

I do not consider £500 million microscopic, it would pay for a hell of a lot of test strips!

 

[mikeyB]

You can do anything with numbers. The cost is about 0.3% of the NHS budget. That makes this a sledgehammer to break a very small nut. And it is a distraction from the real problems of the NHS. I'm not justifying it.