Health Services: Overseas Residence
Health
Written answers and statements, 9 September 2009
Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many non-British residents received NHS treatment in (a) England and (b) North East Cambridgeshire in each of the last 10 years; what estimate he has made of the cost to the NHS of treating each such group in each year; what proportion of such expenditure was recovered through charges to such patients and their insurers in each year; and if he will make a statement.
Mike O'Brien (Minister of State (Health Services), Department of Health; North Warwickshire, Labour)
The total audited national income from overseas patients under non-reciprocal arrangements and total losses, bad debt and claims abandoned for overseas visitors for years 2002-03 to 2008-09 for which figures are available for England and North East Cambridgeshire are shown in the tables.
The provisions of the NHS (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 1989 place a legal obligation on providers of National Health Service hospital services to establish whether patients are ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom and, if not, whether they are exempt from charges under the provisions of the regulations or liable to pay for any treatment provided. Under the regulations a number of categories of non-British citizens who are currently either resident or visiting the UK are exempted from charges for some or all of their NHS treatment. These include, but are not limited to, nationals of the European economic area states and other countries with which the UK has a bilateral health agreement, students and some workers.
The figures provided therefore reflect chargeable patients under these regulations. Successive governments have not required the NHS to provide separate statistics on the number of non-British residents seen, treated or charged under these provisions. Therefore, it is not possible to provide that level of information.
The total audited national income from overseas patients under non-reciprocal arrangements, and total losses, bad debt and claims abandoned for overseas visitors for years 2002-03 to 2008-09 for which figures are available for England.
| £ | ||
| Non-reciprocal income received | Bad debts and claims abandoned in respect of overseas patients | |
| 2002-03 | — | 2,109,000 |
| 2003-04 | 9,178,000 | 3,334,173 |
| 2004-05 | 10,883,000 | 2,369,650 |
| 2005-06 | 13,070,000 | 3,883,017 |
| 2006-07 | 15,182,925 | 5,046,763 |
| 2007-08 | 18,167,000 | 6,468,751 |
| 2008-09 | 17,541,000 | 5,204,856 |
| Notes: 1. 2003-04 was the first year we separately identified income from overseas patients under non-reciprocal agreements. Therefore there is no data before this time. 2. We do not collect data from NHS Foundation Trusts so figures from 2004-05 onwards exclude these sites. Source: NHS Trust Audited Summarisation Schedules. | ||
The total audited income from overseas patients under non-reciprocal arrangements, and total losses, bad debt and claims abandoned for overseas visitors for years 2002-03 to 2008-09 for which figures are available for those organisations within North East Cambridgeshire.
| Income | |||||
| £ | |||||
| Financial year | Addenbrookes NHS Trust | Kings Lynn and Wisbech Hospitals NHS Trust | Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kings Lynn NHS Trust | Peterborough Hospitals NHS Trust | Total North East Cambridgeshire |
| 2003-04 | 217,000 | 19,000 | — | 74,000 | 310,000 |
| 2004-05 | — | — | 320,000 | — | 320,000 |
| 2005-06 | — | — | 0 | — | 0 |
| 2006-07 | — | — | 20,000 | — | 20,000 |
| 2007-08 | — | — | 65,000 | — | 65,000 |
| 2008-09 | — | — | -3,000 | — | -3,000 |
| Losses and debts | |||||
| £ | |||||
| Financial year | Addenbrookes NHS Trust | Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | Kings Lynn and Wisbech Hospitals NHS Trust | Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kings Lynn NHS Trust | Total North East Cambridgeshire |
| 2002-03 | 19,000 | — | 1,000 | — | 20,000 |
| 2003-04 | 20,684 | 0 | 328 | — | 21,012 |
| 2004-05 | — | 961 | — | 13,084 | 14,045 |
| 2005-06 | — | — | — | 8,147 | 8,147 |
| 2006-07 | — | — | — | 0 | 0 |
| 2007-08 | — | — | — | 2,442 | 2,442 |
| 2008-09 | — | — | — | 3,286 | 3,286 |
| Notes: 1. 2003-04 was the first year we separately identified income from overseas patients under non-reciprocal agreements. Therefore there is no income data before this time. 2. The Department keeps data from the individual summarisation schedules of NHS bodies for seven years; therefore losses data is only available for the years 2002-03 to 2008-09. 3. In 2004-05 Addenbrookes NHS Trust obtained foundation status and became Cambridgeshire University Hospital Foundation Trust. The 2004-05 figure represents only the part of the year the organisation operated as a NHS Trust after which no national data has been collected. 4. In 2004-05 Peterborough Hospitals NHS Trust obtained foundation status and became Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals Foundation Trust. There is no losses data for Peterborough Hospitals NHS Trust. 5. In 2004-05 Kings Lynn and Wisbech Hospitals NHS Trust became Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kings Lynn NHS Trust. Source: NHS Trust Audited Summarisation Schedule | |||||