Teh One Who Knocks
02-02-2017, 08:39 PM
By Lizzie Stromme - The Express
http://i.imgur.com/XGyNwRp.jpg
THE UK should take a page out of the Americans book and demand overseas patients prove they have insurance immediately or produce a credit card upon arrival at A&E, Nick Ferrari raged.
The LBC host was speaking after a report revealed the NHS is losing millions of pounds a year on health tourism.
The report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found the UK pays out £675m for the care of Britons in Europe, while it gets back less than £50m back for the costs of treating European patients.
The LBC host raged over the figures as he clashed with Helen Stokes-Lampard, the Chair of the Royal College of GPs, over how the issue of health tourism is dealt with.
Dr Stokes-Lampard appeared exasperated with Ferrari as she said the role of doctors is to deliver care to patients, not act as border force officials.
To which the LBC host proposed: "It must break your heart, and those of your colleagues, when you simply haven't got the funds to give drugs to people who require them, or people have to wait for blood tests or surgery or operations or procedures because there isn't enough cash.
"And yet you see literally tens of millions of pounds that nobody bothers to recoup. This is wrong.”
Dr Stokes-Lampard replied: "It is a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of the NHS and the scale of underfunding that we face."
Promoting Ferrari to say the UK should take after the US and demand people produce identification upon arrival, so they could pay upfront if they did not have insurance.
“Why can't we be like the United States?,” he said.
“The minute you go to an emergency room, you either show that you have insurance or you give a credit card. How hard would that be?"
Disregarding the idea, the doctor insisted Britain did not have the resources to implement the restructure needed to enforce such a policy.
But Ferrari had an answer for that too: “We have NHS cards. That’s got everything we need on it, it’s got your NHS number on it.”
The PAC report also found the target to reclaim £500million a year from all overseas patients by 2017/18 would be missed by more than £150million.
Meg Hillier, PAC chairman said: "The Government's failure to get a grip on recovering the costs of treating overseas visitors is depriving the NHS of vital funds.
"Our committee has reported extensively on the financial pressures facing the health service and it is simply unacceptable that so much money owed should continue to go uncollected.”
While the report added the systems for recovery appeared to be chaotic.
“The Department told us it was planning further changes relating to policy and regulation, good practice and IT, but we are not convinced that enough is being done to identify and charge overseas patients,” it stated.
“If the NHS does not recover the cost of treating patients who are not entitled to free care, then there is less money available to treat other people and even more pressure on NHS finances.
“Increasing the amount recovered depends on action by hospital trusts, but only 11 of 50 trusts that responded to a consultation thought that their income from overseas patients would increase significantly in future.”
http://i.imgur.com/XGyNwRp.jpg
THE UK should take a page out of the Americans book and demand overseas patients prove they have insurance immediately or produce a credit card upon arrival at A&E, Nick Ferrari raged.
The LBC host was speaking after a report revealed the NHS is losing millions of pounds a year on health tourism.
The report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found the UK pays out £675m for the care of Britons in Europe, while it gets back less than £50m back for the costs of treating European patients.
The LBC host raged over the figures as he clashed with Helen Stokes-Lampard, the Chair of the Royal College of GPs, over how the issue of health tourism is dealt with.
Dr Stokes-Lampard appeared exasperated with Ferrari as she said the role of doctors is to deliver care to patients, not act as border force officials.
To which the LBC host proposed: "It must break your heart, and those of your colleagues, when you simply haven't got the funds to give drugs to people who require them, or people have to wait for blood tests or surgery or operations or procedures because there isn't enough cash.
"And yet you see literally tens of millions of pounds that nobody bothers to recoup. This is wrong.”
Dr Stokes-Lampard replied: "It is a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of the NHS and the scale of underfunding that we face."
Promoting Ferrari to say the UK should take after the US and demand people produce identification upon arrival, so they could pay upfront if they did not have insurance.
“Why can't we be like the United States?,” he said.
“The minute you go to an emergency room, you either show that you have insurance or you give a credit card. How hard would that be?"
Disregarding the idea, the doctor insisted Britain did not have the resources to implement the restructure needed to enforce such a policy.
But Ferrari had an answer for that too: “We have NHS cards. That’s got everything we need on it, it’s got your NHS number on it.”
The PAC report also found the target to reclaim £500million a year from all overseas patients by 2017/18 would be missed by more than £150million.
Meg Hillier, PAC chairman said: "The Government's failure to get a grip on recovering the costs of treating overseas visitors is depriving the NHS of vital funds.
"Our committee has reported extensively on the financial pressures facing the health service and it is simply unacceptable that so much money owed should continue to go uncollected.”
While the report added the systems for recovery appeared to be chaotic.
“The Department told us it was planning further changes relating to policy and regulation, good practice and IT, but we are not convinced that enough is being done to identify and charge overseas patients,” it stated.
“If the NHS does not recover the cost of treating patients who are not entitled to free care, then there is less money available to treat other people and even more pressure on NHS finances.
“Increasing the amount recovered depends on action by hospital trusts, but only 11 of 50 trusts that responded to a consultation thought that their income from overseas patients would increase significantly in future.”