Lord Laird – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2016-06-28.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 13 June (HL566), what assessment they have made of why the UK has claimed £49,736,125 from EEA countries and Switzerland for the cost of the NHS providing treatment to people for whom they are responsible under EU law, but has reimbursed EEA countries and Switzerland £674,418,036 for the cost of providing treatment to people for whom the UK is responsible under EU law in 2014–15.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Because of European Union healthcare rules, millions of United Kingdom citizens who work, visit or retire to other European countries can receive the free or reduced cost healthcare they need. That is what we are paying the £674 million for.

Some 80% of this (over £500 million) is for our pensioners who chose to retire to Europe.

Many more of our pensioners choose to retire to other European Economic Area countries than pensioners from those countries retiring to the UK, it is therefore inevitable that we will pay more to cover healthcare costs of our pensioners.