The Government is failing to recoup what could amount to millions of pounds each year from European countries for treating their citizens on the
NHS
, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The Department of Health and Social Care charged European nations just £29.5million last year to pay for their citizens to be treated in Britain’s hospitals.
Yet the UK’s bill for the healthcare costs of British pensioners and holidaymakers treated in European hospitals came to nearly £1billion in the same period.
Critics say it raises concerns that the Government is allowing the NHS to be ‘taken for a ride’ by Europe on healthcare costs.
While European nations bill the Government for care provided to Britons based on hospital invoices, the MoS has learned UK officials compile bills for countries based on ‘estimates’ of costs incurred by the NHS to treat their citizens.
Campaigners say the true figure is likely to be significantly higher.
And while the NHS is failing to get the best deal possible for taxpayers – Chancellor Rachel Reeves is preparing a £30billion boost to the health service at the expense of the police and councils.
The revelations come after the MoS revealed in April that hospitals in England had written off £256.4million owed by overseas visitors for NHS procedures.
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: ‘The problem lies in our total inability to monitor non-UK nationals’ use of the NHS, a scandalous failure to secure payments due, and naivety when dealing with the EU which has so often taken us for a ride.’
Tory MP Joe Robertson, a member of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, said: ‘It beggars belief that the NHS has no record of the cost of care it provides to foreign nationals.
‘Our NHS is not supposed to be a subsidised health service for the rest of Europe but plainly that’s what it is becoming.’
There is a ‘reciprocal agreement’ for healthcare in Europe, which means all citizens in the European Economic Area (EEA) are entitled to some, or all, of their healthcare needs to be paid for by their home nation when abroad.
While European health systems, which usually charge upfront, are good at logging such details, the NHS is not – hence the rough estimates.
The figures, which come from a Freedom of Information request by the MoS, reveal the NHS billed Spain £6.7million during 2023/24 and paid back around £441million.
Some £225million went to Ireland and £186million to France – but the NHS billed just £17million and £11million in return.
Germany received £10.9million and paid back £3.5million to the UK.
And there are also more British visitors to Europe (63million) every year than European visitors to the UK (26million).
But the gap between what the UK pays, and what it bills back, has worsened over the last decade.
In 2014/15, the UK claimed back £49.7million from Europe but in 2023/24, it was £20.2million less, a drop of 40 per cent.
And bills for Britons treated abroad have risen by 40 per cent, from £674.4million in 2014/15 to £948.9million last year.
Mr Robertson said he had written to the Public Accounts Committee to look at this subject and ‘force the Government’s hand’.
A Department of Health spokesman said the UK charges EU nations when their citizens use the NHS as part of a deal which ensures Britains ‘can also get healthcare when visiting Europe’.
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