Cash-strapped NHS hospitals have lost over £180million to ‘health tourists’ since a Government pledge to crackdown on the scandal.
Freedom of Information data obtained by MailOnline show NHS services are losing the equivalent of £100,000 per day due to unpaid care bills.
Critics say the lost cash could have paid for the equivalent of 6,000 nurses, 5,500 junior doctors, or 30,000 hip replacements.
While visitors to the UK can access urgent and emergency NHS treatment, they are expected to pay for it.
Last year the NHS wrote off £36million in debts from health tourists — double the £16million recorded in 2017, the year that the Department of Health issued tough new guidance instructing staff to bill patients before starting most treatments.
Cash-strapped NHS hospitals have lost over £180million to ‘health tourists’ in five years, here are the NHS trusts with total debts from unpaid bills exceeding £5million
London‘s NHS trusts had the biggest write offs, the FOI revealed, with Barts Health NHS alone accounting for £31million of the sum lost in the last five years.
Fellow London trusts King’s College Hospital Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Trust had bills of £15.2million and £13.3million, respectively.
Some individual patients have previously left unpaid NHS bills valued at £500,000.
This includes a Nigerian woman who gave birth to quadruplets after going into labour shortly after landing at Heathrow.
Priscilla, 43 at the time, had intended to fly to Chicago to have her babies, but was turned away by US officials who claimed she would be unable to afford the healthcare costs.
Two died shortly after because they were so premature. The other two, Elijah and Esther, spent weeks on the hospital’s neonatal intensive care ward, racking up an extensive bill.
Experts also fear the published total is just the tip of the iceberg as it only represents cases where invoices were generated and then not paid.
They suspect that, in many cases, NHS officials have never issued bills to health tourists because they consider little success of them being paid.
NHS hospitals are meant to charge patients who aren’t residents in the UK a 150 per cent rate of what it would typically cost the health service to perform any procedure normally.
For example, a hip replacement has been estimated to cost the NHS £6,000, but under the aforementioned rules would cost an overseas visitor, in theory, £9,000.
Patients needing emergency care are still charged but are invoiced after any medical care.
These rules apply to both foreign travellers visiting the UK as well as British citizens who aren’t residents, for example ex-pats returning home to visit family.
Government modelling ahead of the crackdown, published by then-Health Secretary and now-Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, estimated more consistent charging of overseas patients using NHS services would net the country an extra £500million.
But a National Audit Office report said the money raised would fall far short of that target.
While Tories announced a crackdown of health tourists in 2017, they reiterated their commitment to stop the practice in 2019.
Ex-PM Boris Johnson‘s 2019 election manifesto read: ‘We will clamp down on health tourism, ensuring that those from overseas who use NHS services pay their fair share.
‘And we will increase the NHS surcharge paid by those from overseas.’
Alp Mehmet, chairman of the campaign group Migrationwatch UK, said MailOnline’s ‘sobering’ figures showed a lack of progress in tackling the problem.
‘Indeed, the total cost could be even higher; if the NHS would only make more effort to recover costs from those not entitled to free treatment,’ he said.
‘Ultimately, these huge costs are borne by the hard-pressed taxpayer. This is grossly unfair.’
A Nigerian mother who gave birth to quadruplets in the NHS in 2016. Priscilla, who was 43 at the time, went into labour shortly after landing at Heathrow airport, her case cost the NHS £500,000
Howard Cox, Reform UK’s London Mayoral Candidate, called for greater action from Government on issuing costing the capital’s hospitals millions.
‘Our impotent and financially incompetent management in the NHS and the Government seem dense as to how to stop the increasingly unpaid amounts growing, and as always, all at the taxpayers’ expense,’ he said.
‘With hospitals allegedly in financial strife and under so much strain, it’s time Victoria Atkins, Secretary of State for Health negotiated with the Governments where most of these freeloaders originate from, to seek fair and proper compensation for the care they have received.
‘Otherwise let’s adopt the US system, and see their valid health insurance first, before receiving any medical care at all.
‘Now that approach may just stop the flow of scroungers visiting our much long-suffering hospitals.’
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘Every taxpayer supports the health service and it is only right that overseas visitors contribute towards their treatment costs.
‘Between 2015/16 and 2021/22, over £4 billion was reported in income from overseas visitors.
‘To improve recovery of charges, non-urgent NHS care must be paid for in advance and any debts that arise from providing urgent care ahead of payment must be pursued.
‘To incentivise payment, anyone applying for a new visa who has an outstanding debt to the NHS may have that application refused and therefore not be allowed to return to the UK until the debt has been paid in full.’
While health tourists have to pay for most NHS treatments some are free to all.
These include attending A&E for an assessment, though this doesn’t include any subsequent treatment, family planning services not including abortions or IVF and treatment for diseases that could infect the wider public
Any treatment for injury and conditions caused by torture, mutilation, or domestic or sexual violence which has happened in England is also not charged, though those who come to the UK specifically for treatment in these areas will still have to pay.
