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Last modified date:8 February 2007
Question
I understand the Department of Health (DH) has embarked on a monthly survey of 12 acute trusts to monitor the number of overseas nationals not ordinarily resident in the UK seeking to access NHS care.
A letter was sent by DH to strategic health authority chief executives and some trust chief executives on 31 March 2004 which outlined the purpose of the survey. This was to gain information on the volumes of overseas nationals seeking to access free NHS care; the countries from which they come and whether they are subject to reciprocal healthcare arrangements, otherwise exempt or liable to charges. Information should have been collected since May 2004. The DH also requested information on activity within 2003-04 for baseline purposes.
Please could you provide me with this information from the monthly surveys since May 2004, and the information on baseline activity for 2003-04.
Response
I think it may be helpful to clarify one or two points about the monitoring survey you identify in your letter. Since May, at the request of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, as part of a cross-Government monitoring exercise, the DH has been collecting data on the number of people accessing hospital treatment from the eight Eastern European Accession countries at a dozen NHS trusts across England. Only people from these eight countries have been the subject of the monitoring exercise, not all overseas visitors. Trusts were chosen either because they serve London or because of their proximity to likely ports of entry to the UK from mainland Europe. They are therefore not representative of the NHS as a whole. Moreover, the returns do not differentiate between those who have entered the country since May, and those who had been living here previously.
For the period May to December 2004 (eight months) the figures are as follows:
Country | No patients |
|---|---|
Czech Republic | 33 |
Estonia | 13 |
Hungary | 18 |
Latvia | 9 |
Lithuania | 40 |
Poland | 381 |
Slovak Republic | 37 |
Slovenia | 11 |
Total | 542 |
Of the 542 patients identified by the monitoring exercise, 532 were fully entitled to receive their treatment free of charge. The remaining ten were charged in accordance with the NHS (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 1989, as amended.
As you say in your letter, DH did originally ask for information on baseline activity, but it subsequently became clear that this was not necessary for the purposes of the monitoring exercise, so that information was not in the end submitted by the 12 trusts.
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