Il SSN deve recuperare centinaia di milioni da pazienti all’estero

Well, here’s a fun anecdote of my experience on this – which was firmly during Javid’s tenure as health sec.

My wife and I (I’m British, she isn’t) were holidaying in the UK in April 2022, when my wife had to be admitted to A&E. After a 6 hour wait surrounded by junkies foaming at the mouth and violent criminals guarded by cops, she ended up staying in a ward for 4 nights.

On checking her in, I requested payment information from the receptionist – explaining that we have travel insurance; and, here’s a copy of it. Here’s my parents’ address as a correspondence address, etc. I was met with a gormless stare and told the doctors would be with us shortly.

Every day I visited, through the farce of the Covid protocols, I went and told the receptionists that I need them to send me an invoice so I can alert my insurance provider. Nothing.

No less than 8 months later – we’d moved countries again, and a letter arrives at my parents’ house – demanding immediate payment, along with a load of threats that if we don’t, her name will be given to immigration. Wow.

Anyway, we paid, claimed it back from Amex, no problem. Except, for the next few months we received several more bits of paperwork claiming to be the original bill. After my first response, I duly ignored the rest.

Lord knows what the supposedly ‘written-off’ amount there comes to, despite the fact that the correct figure owed is zero.

So, Javid – this is on your watch. I get it that you were subbed-in because the incumbent sex-pest was moved aside, but perhaps take some responsibility for the shitshow you chaired. It isn’t people pulling a fast-one. It’s an incompetent circus.

> quarter of a billion pounds over the last three years

So £83 million a year. The NHS budget in 2024 was £175 billion, that’s £175,000 million. So heath tourism costs the NHS 0.04%. Giving staff a penny on their hourly rate would cost more.

The intention of the article is very clear. For people and staff to treat at each other with suspicion when needing medical care. To blame “immigrants” for the NHS crumbling. To spread hate.

Of the long list of waste, bureaucracy and inefficiencies – health tourism wouldn’t be in top 10. Yet hard right will use this an excuse for ID cards, state surveillance and authoritarianism.

I had my own run-in with NHS billing. I’d been here legally for years, dutifully paying the immigration charges, was a high rate taxpayer for a decade and all the rest. Had the full entitlement to the NHS care that comes with being a good immigrant. When it came to maternity, I planned to go private, but, as babies do, mine completely ignored the plan and arrived via emergency delivery a few weeks earlier, complete with urgent postnatal care.

Several years later, out of thin air, I was presented with a bill for labour and aftercare. The hospital’s Overseas Dept could not establish my entitlement as my old visa category no longer even existed and was not covered in their guidance / protocol. Computer said no.

The interesting part was that my child was British at birth, with a father whose ancestors went back to the Roman times, yet the postnatal bill (NICU, etc) was somehow considered my responsibility alone. I secretly half-hoped it would go to court, just to showcase the idiocy.

In the end, the whole saga simply evaporated. After rounds of exhausting correspondence, the overseas finance department just stopped replying. I called and wrote to everyone i could find, but I’m still not sure what happened to it. Maybe it is still counted towards those millions, and I need to expect the next episode lol.

The NHS budget is around £200bn per year, but that’s such a large number that people can’t comprehend it, hundreds of millions is easier because it’s a really big national lottery win.

£200bn = £200,000,000,000

£200mn = £200,000,000

Lets scale the number down, it’s like £200 vs 20p,