Up to £500 million could be recovered from overseas visitors' and migrants' use of the NHS every year Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said.
The Department of Health has released a study of how widely migrants use the NHS, showing that £388m is spent each year on patients who should already be paying for their care, but who are often not processed and charged by the NHS.
Only around 16% is currently recovered by the NHS.
In addition, the department estimates a cost of between £70m and £300m from people who deliberately travel to the UK to get free NHS treatment - so-called ‘health tourists' - which could be significantly reduced through a better cost recovery system and deterring abuse.
The Government is introducing a new health surcharge in the Immigration Bill - which will generate an estimated £200 million; establishing a cost recovery unit, headed by a Director of Cost Recovery and introducing a simpler registration process to help identify earlier those patients who should be charged.
The total cost of visitors and temporary migrants accessing the NHS is estimated as between £1.9 billion and £2 billion.
However, this includes some money recovered, vulnerable patient groups and services it would be impractical or inappropriate to charge for in full, such as treatment for infectious diseases, and the full cost of international students' healthcare.
While the results of the consultation on measures to change the system are being considered, the Department of Health has appointed Sir Keith Pearson as the independent NHS adviser to the visitor and migrant NHS cost recovery programme.
Sir Keith said:"I welcome this research as a helpful piece of analysis of the problem. I am confident that we will be able to recover a good proportion of this money."
