On Monday morning, Jeremy Hunt’s diary secretary rang me to arrange a time for me to speak to the Secretary of State over the telephone. I had already received an email from his special adviser the previous week, saying, ‘The two points which the independent research make clear are central to what you’ve been saying for a long time; namely that health tourism is a huge problem with a substantial cost to the NHS and the current system is an unfair burden on frontline staff.’
When Jeremy rang, he was charming, full of praise, and eager to tackle the issue of health tourism — the exploitation of the NHS by ineligible, non-tax contributing patients. Yet for all the Health Secretary’s good intentions, I fear his department is failing to grasp the nettle. The government has not recognised the extent of the problem, so its solutions are inadequate.
When I first raised this issue in The Spectator, I quoted from the Department of Health’s website section on ‘Eligibility for free hospital treatment under the NHS’, to show how open to abuse the rules and regulations governing free access to NHS care are.
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