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Immigration Bill

Answer

Clause 33 of the Immigration Bill gives provision for the introduction of the health surcharge on individuals subject to immigration control. We anticipate that this surcharge will be introduced for individuals seeking leave to enter or remain on visas of between six months and five years' duration.

The Department is working closely with the Home Office to ensure that information on the individuals who have paid the health surcharge is easily available to providers of National Health Service healthcare. An individual having paid the health surcharge will then generally be entitled to access all NHS services free at the point of delivery as per any United Kingdom or European Economic Area national resident here. Eligibility will be demonstrated by the possession of a biometric residence permit and an automatically-created NHS record, which will identify that the individual has paid the surcharge and therefore is not to be subject to further charges, except where a resident pays charges.

The additional administrative burden on the NHS of identifying those who have paid the surcharge, and thus of verifying their entitlement to healthcare which is free at the point of delivery, should be minimal. The Department is working with the Health and Social Care Information Centre to include new data fields on the NHS Spine that will be populated with an individual's immigration status and surcharge validity automatically.

The Department will be publishing a costed implementation plan for the NHS Cost Recovery Programme soon.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL5958; 753 cc122-3WA

Session

2013-14

Subjects

Health services Fees and charges Foreign nationals NHS

Legislation

Immigration Bill 2013-14

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk