The UK government has announced plans to limit the rights of overseas visitors and failed asylum seekers to free treatment from the National Health Service.
Under the government plans, free NHS care will only be provided to people with a right to live in the UK. However, emergency care will continue to be provided as will treatment for infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. However, antiretroviral treatment for HIV will be charged for.
From April 2004 people not entitled to free NHS treatment will be charged for their treatment. Overseas students studying in the UK will not be affected by charges for health care.
Moves to restrict the rights of what the tabloid press have dubbed "health tourists" to free NHS treatment were partly prompted by media reports about people travelling to the UK on tourist visas with the intention of obtaining NHS treatment, or businessmen bringing their families with them to the UK, and discovering that a family member has a chronic medical condition requiring urgent treatment.
Newspaper reports also highlighted the cost of providing HIV treatment and care to non-UK nationals, and carried stories labelling HIV-positive asylum seekers and migrants a "threat to public health."
The British Medical Association has criticised the plans, with a spokesperson saying that it is wrong for the Home Office to ask the NHS to enforce its immigration policies.
Speaking at an HIV conference last December a senior member of the British HIV Association stressed what he saw as his moral obligation to provide free, life-saving anti-HIV treatment to patients regardless of their immigration status. The doctor told the conference that "if a hospital administrator wants me to stop proving HIV care to somebody because they aren’t entitled to free NHS care, then they can tell them that I can’t treat them and that they’ll die as a result, because as a doctor I'm not going to do it."
The Department of Health points out that Overseas Patient Managers already exist in the NHS and will be expected to assess the entitlement of all patients. However, it is unclear how patients will be required to prove their entitlement to treatment.
The opposition Conservatives have attacked the plans for not going far enough, and have already called for the screening of migrants to the UK and asylum seekers for HIV and tuberculosis. The Government is understood to be considering introducing a requirement that all applicants for a British entry visa should present evidence of their HIV status when making a visa application.
Further information on this website
NHS and non-UK nations - factsheet