A Public Accounts Committee report says the system for recouping costs from overseas patients is “chaotic” – a fact that was starkly illustrated when a Nigerian woman, Priscilla, ran up a £330,000 bill for NHS treatment after she gave birth prematurely to quadruplets in a London hospital. The
woman was taken ill on a flight from the US to Nigeria via Heathrow (she had been due to give birth in the US but was turned back due to paperwork). She gave birth to one baby who died, while she and her three children were all placed in intensive care. Another of her children died and her two
surviving children remain in intensive care which costs £20,000 a week per child. In October, it was revealed the government was expected to fall short of its target of recovering £500m a year from overseas visitors and the Department of Health “refined” its target for 2017-18 to £346m.
Hospital trusts in England are legally obliged to check whether patients are eligible for free non-emergency NHS treatment and to recover any costs. The report identifies the biggest challenge to
recovering costs as the lack of a single easy way to prove whether patients are entitled to healthcare.
