Autumn Statement and the "Just About Managing"

I agree, JessM. I was thinking about this as I drove home half an hour ago. I don't have a passport, so would I be denied treatment?

Eligibility does not depend on nationality, but residence. How would somebody prove that? In my case, I could, because I pay my own utility bills in my own name, but what about those who aren't heads of household? What about students who haven't got round to getting themselves on the electoral role?

The only way to be sure would be to set up a department to check eligibility and issue people with some kind of eligibilty certificate? How much would all that cost?

In any case. £900 million is peanuts compared with the financial black hole. It would be far more cost-effective to use the money to investigate tax evasion.

And once all this money has been recouped/saved, who's going to guarantee it will go to the JAMs? That would require political will, which I believe isn't there.

Jacob Rees-Mogg?
Zac Goldsmith?
Douglas Hogg?
Seem quite toffish to me.

Well, according to durhamjen each and every one of us is going to have to produce photo id or a passport for any hospital treatment in the near future (see various NHS threads). Presumably that will require more staff and necessitate yet more paperwork...

Have the indignant amongst you considered that there is a not insignificant cost to policing health tourism.
1. trained admin staff need to examine identity documents. They have to know things like: If an Indian passport is stamped "Leave to remain; No recourse to public funds" what does that actually mean? This is definitely not the kind of work nurses or doctors do, or should be asked to do.
2. It's very hard to tell the legitimate from the non legitimate, so even if you inspected the documentation of everyone who looked foreign, sounded foreign, had a foreign sounding name (think of all those Irish names!) that would be a lot of people.
3. That would be discriminatory, so you'd have to check everyone
4. Once you have decided to screen everyone and identify the relatively small number of ineligible people coming through your doors every month, you have to set up an accounting system, with trained staff who can do the money side of it. The accounting system would have to have a way of costing all possible combinations of medical treatment. Such a system would not be cheap to set up (or buy)
5. You have to pay someone to collect the money, send receipts or chase a debt.

So I can well imagine that if you were a hard-pressed Trust manager, in most areas of the country, you would not think it was worth spending thousands of pounds on extra staff, IT systems and staff training in the hopes of recouping a modest amount in return.
If you are in one of a small number of hot spots e.g. St Georges, then you might think it worthwhile.
These are the sort of decisions NHS managers are well able to make - whereas politicians, journalists and random members of the public are not.

@suzied

Exactly! EU citizens would have to be crazy to come to the UK for a planned op when they can go to other countries. I know a number of former colleagues who went back to France or Germany for medical treatment.

Having said that, my ex MIL, who lived in South East Asia for over 15 years used to come back to the UK for medical treatment. She didn't pay UK tax and used her daughter's address when she came to the UK. When I raised eyebrows about the ethics of what she was doing, she claimed that was OK, because everybody did it.

I wouldn't worry about health tourism in the NHS, with the cost of Brexit unless we all receive less pension and the young pay more taxes the NHS will fold because we will not be able to pay for it.

The Spanish health service must groan under the weight of the retired Brits.

@whitewave

Well, we have to blame somebody, don't we? It couldn't possibly be because we are responsible! [sarcastic smiley] We're Great Britain after all and we're always right. It's all those Johnny Foreigners who are out to get us with their weird ideas. [very sarcastic smiley]

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/11/24/one-cannot-stress-enough-how-dreadful-this-is/

A neighbour of mine went to Germany for an op she couldn't get here. So it's not all one way. The service / treatment was excellent there.

@TriciaF

Running a national economy is not the same as managing a household budget. It's the myth that we need to 'tighten our belts' (because that's what a household would do) which is a major cause of Britain's economic problems - and, yes, the economy is in poor shape, whatever the fantasists would try to claim.

So our living standards have plummeted. Our NHS is going down the pan. The poorest group will be even worse off by 2020. And we are blaming the EU

I agree with you, Ana. Cameron and Osborne were probably the most toff-like MPs we've had for a while. Most of the rest are bright, ambitious and intelligent people. I believe they start off with a strong belief they can serve their country, although some do let power go to their heads. It's a difficult balance, because MPs do have to have a sense of self-belief and self-confidence, which can easily turn into arrogance.

The Simap trade union said that non-Spanish EU nationals in Alicante, where Britons are by far the largest group, now accounted for 15% to 20% of people treated in local hospitals.

"Spain's health service is quick, free and offers a wide range of services," said Dr Juan Benedito of Simaptoday. "It is not surprising that people come here."

The Socialist former head of the Extremadura region of Spain, Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra, warned this week that "scrounge tourism" was bleeding money out of Spain's health service.

www.google.com/url?q=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/07/treating-uk-tourists-in-europe-costs-five-times-more-than-equivalent-cost-to-nhs&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwihxfmD-sHQAhVEF8AKHQvbD-gQFggFMAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNHZlqLzQX5sHgNfzQVEvBQvBFAlbg

Uk health tourism in France costs five times as much as French health tourism in UK.

Oh come on, I don't think many (if any) government ministers are 'upper class'. Some of them aren't even rich.

Ruth1958 I agree with you. We should know how to tighten our belts, been in much worse situations and survived.
But it's the comparison with the rich upperclass who don't need to do this, and are governing us that rankles.

When I had minor op earlier this year I had to fill in a very long form about my nationality. Re nhs saving
Money why not ask everyone to buy their own soluble aspirin s and stop the repeat prescription s over bureaucratic nonsense.

Not usually to Spain or France though...

Maybe all those figures mean that more UK people do health tourism in other countries than come here for it. After all, there are quite a few cancer patients who go abroad for treatment that cannot be obtained here.

Interesting post Yorkshiregel and high time the NHS Sorted out the mess that surrounds overseas visitors getting free treatment which they are not entitled to.
Successive governments have allowed this aspect to just slide.

hospitals and GPs don't (in the main) ask people about their residency status

I had treatment at a walk in centre a few weeks ago, JessM, and as I was in the waiting room a lady with a German name and strong accent was asked how long she'd been in the country, so perhaps it's starting now.

She was very cross about being asked, and it turned out she'd lived here since 1946.

Daphnedill hate to upset you as you are always an interesting read but :

The 2013/14 HBAI report gave median household income (2 adults) as £23,556. The provisional results from the April 2014 ASHE report gives median gross annual earnings of £22,044 for all employees and £27,195 for full-time employees.

Actually I thought it was about £26k so it is more than I thought :-)

The article in the Telegraph is based on fictional figures. Someone has sat down and made them up. How do we know that? Because hospitals and GPs don't (in the main) ask people about their residency status. My husband holds an Irish passport but the only place that is recorded is on the confidential version of the electoral roll. So where on earth could they get the figures from other than sitting in their office and going "Hmm, let's see, how many foreign people do we think might be getting free treatment?"
NHS Trusts can charge people if they choose to make the necessary enquiries. That is quite different to asking all us UK residents to roll up to outpatients with proof of residency.
To clarify "Jams" is apparently what they started calling people in the Treasury, after the PM declared something must be done for them. (and the term escaped into journalism) Nothing to with either jam, mobile phones or holidays.
The definitions for this category are as wooly as "hard working families" and "squeezed middle". All a bit fuzzy but we want your vote
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38049245

No wonder they are a bit miffed that we are LEAVING The EU.