Foreign Influx Weighs Down NHS

The NHS is having to cope with the large influx of foreign migrants without extra funding, Sky News has learned.

Despite foreign workers paying tax on the income they earn, the money has not been used to boost public services in the areas with the greatest migration.

An estimated 20,000 migrants have moved to Peterborough in the last four years to work. That is a 15% rise in the city's population.

Many of them have come from countries that have recently joined the European Union. They are entitled to free NHS care.

Almost 200 babies are year a born to Eastern European mothers at the hospital.

And GPs complain that consultations involving a telephone translator take two or even three times longer than normal.

Local MP Stewart Jackson said funding for local NHS services is based on the headcount in the 2001 census, before the surge in economic migrants.

"We need fair funding for places like Peterborough, which is expected to deliver 21st Century healthcare to everyone who asks for it."

The local primary care trust has channelled more money into maternity care to help the hospital cope with the extra births.

But plans to revamp GP surgeries have been put on hold.

And infertile couples will have to wait until next year to get the three attempts at IVF that they're supposed to have.

"Because we have an integrated health and social care system here we have made savings in areas not possible in other PCTs. That has enabled us to free up resources, and target those resources at areas of greatest need."

Iwona Chodzicka says the Polish community has been unfairly blamed for the Government's failure to spend the tax they pay on extra public services.

"They do contribute to the economy like everyone else. Everybody should be entitled to healthcare if they work here and pay their taxes," she said.

There are complex rules on the entitlement of foreigners to NHS care.

Free treatment is given to those from countries that are in the European Union, and countries that have reciprocal healthcare agreements with Britain.

Refugees and asylum seekers are also entitled to free NHS care.

But illegal immigrants and health tourists who specifically come to Britain for treatment have to pay - unless it is treatment for an emergency, or for sexually transmitted or infectious diseases that might put the rest of the population at risk.

Not all debts are collected. Sky News has established under the Freedom of Information Act that the Department of Health had to write off more than £5m in treatment costs last year for patients who should have paid, but could not or would not.

At University College Hospital in London Dr Maggie Blott encounters 44 languages on the maternity ward.

But she says it is not up to her to check whether women are entitled to free NHS treatment.

"I have a duty of care to my patients," she said.

"When a woman presents in labour she is an emergency and is entitled to care. There are processes that work very well within the hospital to recoup costs of women who are not entitled to care."

A recent High Court ruling has caused further confusion within the NHS over who is entitled to free care.

It means failed asylum seekers must be given free care until they are deported.

Medical charity Medact estimates between 200,000 and half a million would be affected by ruling.

The Government has yet to decide whether it will appeal to the House of Lords.



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