Ivan Lewis – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2014-06-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect on devolved NHS services of changes to the way temporary migrants and visitors access the NHS in England.

Jane Ellison

The intention of the relevant powers in the Immigration Act 2014 is to ensure that temporary migrants and visitors make a fair contribution towards the cost of any National Health Service healthcare they receive in the United Kingdom. Under the Act, temporary migrants will be required to pay a health surcharge when applying for a visa to reside in the UK for more than six months. The Devolved Administrations will receive a proportion of funds received from the surcharge. It will be for the Devolved Administrations to decide whether they spend this on health services and whether they amend their health service charging regulations for other visitors to the UK.

If charges for some primary care services in England are introduced to visitors to the UK, those services will continue to be free of charge to people who are ordinarily resident in the UK. Therefore, residents of the Devolved Administrations will continue to be treated on the same basis as an English resident if they access primary care services in England.

However, introducing charging for visitors may influence behaviour near the borders if visitors from overseas in England choose to travel to the other countries to access primary care services that they would have to pay for in England.

The proposed new process for registering with the NHS in England is unlikely to affect the healthcare systems in the devolved administrations but it may mean that residents from the Devolved Administrations who access NHS care in England are asked more often to demonstrate that they are ordinarily resident in the UK, or otherwise entitled to free NHS care in England.

We will continue our discussions with colleagues in the Devolved Administrations on all of these issues.