Panorama Health Tourists

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13 years

Posts: 2,841

Broadcast on Wednesday this week. I watched it on the catch up thing tonight.
For those that can I suggest you watch it. It had me seething with rage. For Christs Sake when will anyone get a grip on this Country and try and save the NHS money instead of pandering to (expletive deleted)foriegners who are bleeding us dry.

Original post

Member for

19 years 5 months

Posts: 9,821

We just had friends visit from the UK
One is a family planning nurse at a facility near Dover.
She said she regularly gets French women wanting services.
Once reccent visitor came and expected a termination the same day she showed up on the clinic doorstep.
Another, just came for pills and kept telling the staff to hurry...she had a ferry to catch. It seems in France, birth control pills must be paid for...so she took a ferry to get free service.

Nice of the UK taxpayers to help out the French...:)

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11 years 5 months

Posts: 11,141

....and there are about 700,000 UK citizens resident in other European countries, notably Spain and France, and enjoying the benefits of those heath services.

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13 years 9 months

Posts: 8,306

Charliehunt.

So, 700.000 "Brits" live abroad, O.K. I take your word for it, however, how many of those living in "What?" other Countries, get, free Ops, treatment, etc, and when old enough free medicines?.as we do here?.
As JB has stated, French citizens come here for free medicine, some American women come here to have their babies they are expecting, delivered, etc.
I am aware there is a reciprocal agreement in the E.U. re if your, say in Greece, and fall ill, you can get certain things free.

I suppose if your a number cruncher, you could state just how much it is costing the NHS by these foreign freeloaders?.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

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11 years 5 months

Posts: 11,141

We can all bandy the numbers around but the bottom line is that thousands of Brits do very well with, arguably superior, treatment abroad and many come here to sponge of us. So what - it's no big deal is it, unless you work for the Beeb!

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11 years 7 months

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And they're off.....
The Daily Mail reading "aren't foreigners terrible people" brigade. :rolleyes:

Maybe we need to look closer to home rather than try and blame everything on foreigners.

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17 years 6 months

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I suppose if your a number cruncher, you could state just how much it is costing the NHS by these foreign freeloaders?

Well, according to the BBC it is £40million over four years.....a drop-in-the-ocean to the NHS.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19789397

I find it hard to accept that it is economically viable to take a cross-channel ferry to get contraceptive pills.....unless the pills are extortionate in France!

It may be questionable, morally, to get free healthcare that you are not entitled to but how many UK citizens go across to France to get cheap booze? The money that they are ‘saving’ is what our government uses to pay for the NHS.

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24 years 2 months

Posts: 3,566

..and there are about 700,000 UK citizens resident in other European countries, notably Spain and France, and enjoying the benefits of those heath services.

There is a subtle difference between being resident in another EU country and being entitled to healthcare as a resident to which you contribute via taxes, to being slipped into the health system as a "visitor" by unscrupulous individuals taking back handers to enable people, not entitled to anything other than emergency health cover as a visitor/"tourist", to benefit from full access to the NHS services.

When you go to another EU country as a tourist, if you hold the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC), that country then sends the bill for your treatment direct to the NHS.

The NHS is struggling to serve those people who pay into it and now these health tourists have been given an open door to abuse the system even more, to the detriment of those who are entitled to it...

Member for

11 years 5 months

Posts: 11,141

And they're off.....
The Daily Mail reading "aren't foreigners terrible people" brigade. :rolleyes:

Maybe we need to look closer to home rather than try and blame everything on foreigners.

Indeed. Neatly put.

Member for

13 years 9 months

Posts: 8,306

Well, according to the BBC it is £40million over four years.....a drop-in-the-ocean to the NHS.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19789397

I find it hard to accept that it is economically viable to take a cross-channel ferry to get contraceptive pills.....unless the pills are extortionate in France!

It may be questionable, morally, to get free healthcare that you are not entitled to but how many UK citizens go across to France to get cheap booze? The money that they are ‘saving’ is what our government uses to pay for the NHS.

Warren.
£40 Mil,, a drop in the ocean?. Well, how many hip replacements, cateract Ops etc could be done with all that money?, I agree with what you say about the £40 mil, but every drop mounts up.
As regards Brits popping across to France for cheap booze and fags, how much will that cost the NHS when these folks, well some, possibly get Lung Cancer, or need a Liver transplant due to their boozing habits, and smoking?.
As for the contraceptive pills, I agree with what you say on that.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

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17 years 6 months

Posts: 9,739

True, it all adds-up but think about the cost of stopping ‘health tourism’. The NHS budget for 2011/2012 was about £104billion, the £10million spent on ‘health tourism’ represents less than 0.01% of that budget.

How do we stop it? Some form of secure identity card system? You know how expensive that sort of thing can be!

I agree with what you say about too much smoking and drinking; how many of those outraged by the ‘tourists’ don’t do enough to look after themselves?

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24 years 2 months

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That 10 million "drop in the ocean" could mean the difference between life and death for some patients on the NHS, who could have life saving or prolonging treatment, which is denied them due to the 'cost' of the drugs.
What price someones life - obviously not worth much if it can be written off so easily just to save the work involved in stopping this abuse....

:mad:

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11 years 5 months

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And it's interesting to set that figure of £10 million against the £7.5 billion which is spent outside the NHS in the private sector, saving the taxpayer that significant sum.

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17 years 6 months

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What price someones life - obviously not worth much if it can be written off so easily just to save the work involved in stopping this abuse...

I’m no condoning it; I am just pointing-out that to stop it would cost money, almost certainly more money than you’d save. It isn’t ‘just to save the work’; that work costs money.

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12 years 11 months

Posts: 1,542

Yet another case of the Public sector going unchecked.

The issue isn't the cost, but the attitude that it's okay for everyone to live off us. In an ideal world that would be true, in the real world it's going to bankrupt us.

10 years ago I was proud of our world leading NHS, now I look at it as an outdated ideal that's bloated and rotten to the core.

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24 years 2 months

Posts: 3,566

So, continue allowing 'insiders' to commit fraud by sneaking non entitled foreign nationals into the system rather than even attempt to prevent it happening in future?

Stopping people stealing from shops costs money, stopping thugs from beating up innocent people on the street costs money, stopping burglaries costs money etc etc, shall we stop trying to prevent that because it costs about £5 billion in England & Wales to do just that.

We constantly read about patients being denied treatment because it costs too much - these 'health tourists' and their fixers are costing the lives of UK taxpaying patients. They are not entitled to treatment for whatever ailments they might have courtesy of the UK NHS.

Hmmm, makes no sense to me...

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13 years

Posts: 2,841

TO right Bob!!!
I happen to be one of those who needs various procedures from Orthopedics.
They are delayed as my Hospital does not have the money except for all but critical cases. Needing at least one new knee and complex spinal surgery so I can be out of pain,walk without falling and getting rid of the pins and needles and or lack of feeling in my hands apparantly is not critical. Still I would not compain if those worse of than me get their operations IF they are UK citizens and are entitled to free care from the NHS.

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17 years 6 months

Posts: 9,739

I don’t like it any more than you do but there is no point ‘saving’ the NHS £10million a year from ‘health tourism’ if it costs the NHS £25million a year to do it!

Look at the practicalities; how are you going to check that each patient deserves the care they are getting? An identity check? Passport? Who is going to check them?

Just to give an idea of the scale of the problem, the NHS issues about a billion prescriptions per year. Let’s say we do an identity check at this point and it takes one minute. That’s a billion minutes, or about one-thousand-nine-hundred years of labour to check identities. At minimum wage that’s means the NHS is going to have to pay somebody over £100million to do these identity checks. And that’s just for ever prescription issued; how many NHS ‘visits’ are there per year?

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19 years 5 months

Posts: 9,821


I find it hard to accept that it is economically viable to take a cross-channel ferry to get contraceptive pills.....unless the pills are extortionate in France!
.

I'm just reporting what she told me.
And, she's hardly an anti-foreigner xenophobe.
Her politics are left of centre...
She was just saying that UK taxpayers are being taken advantage of, she see's it everyday.

One can make excuses for it all day long...perhaps her boyfriend is a UK citizen...so the UK should pay for his protection...:)
But still, people getting benefits to which they're not entitled is wrong.
If the NHS doesn't do whaty it can to prevent it...that's wrong too.

Member for

13 years 9 months

Posts: 8,306

Paul and Bob, too right, When these "Health Tourists" turn up here, surely there must be a way of sending their Countries the bills they rack up to pay, if their Country of origin refuses to pay the bill, that Tourist gets banned from entry into the U.K. until the medical bill gets paid.

I got booked for speeding in Flagstaff, Arizona, 2 MPH over the limit, I was told by a Police Officer, who was a friend, if I had not paid the ticket, I would be refused entry into the USA in future, now if they can do it, why can't we, for medical reasons?.ie the "Health Tourists".
Jim.
Lincoln .7

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17 years 6 months

Posts: 9,739

But still, people getting benefits to which they're not entitled is wrong.

I never said it wasn’t.

If the NHS doesn't do what it can to prevent it...that's wrong too.

Even if it costs much more trying to prevent it than the actual ‘health tourism’ costs the NHS?