YP Comment: About time loophole was closed

HEALTH tourism is an unnecessary drain on hard-pressed NHS resources, and so the announcement by the Government of a crackdown on people from overseas who abuse the service is welcome.

It is unacceptable that £500m a year is being lost to the NHS in this way. This is an astronomical sum of money, and effectively depriving the service of it can only mean delays – and quite possibly suffering – to eligible patients receiving the treatment they need.

The measures announced by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt are both sensible and compassionate. Nobody in need of urgent care will be turned away, but those flying in for elective procedures such as hip replacement or cataract operations will be left in no doubt that they must pay.

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By imposing a legal duty on health trusts to check on patients’ eligibility for free treatment, the Government is rightly putting the emphasis on addressing the problem at the point where the NHS is losing money.

Only the hospitals providing the treatment can establish with any accuracy if a patient should be paying. And by making it clear at the outset if a bill for treatment will be due, there is every chance of deterring at least a proportion of health tourists.

Nobody entitled to free treatment has anything to fear from these measures. Only those who would try to take advantage of the service’s world-class expertise and care will be affected, and the NHS deserves to be protected from having its precious resources wasted by them.