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<p>The National Health Service is a residency-based healthcare system, with a requirement
to be ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom in order to access NHS-funded healthcare.
Providers of relevant NHS services are required to make and recover charges from overseas
visitors where relevant services have been provided to them and no exemption applies.</p><p>
</p><p>The Department does not mandate any specific processes to determine the residence
or chargeable status of patients. In order to identify those who may not be entitled
to NHS-funded treatment, and to do so in a way that avoids racial profiling and discrimination,
all patients need to be asked baseline questions to indicate whether they are ordinarily
resident in the UK or if they may be an overseas visitor who should be assessed for
charges.</p><p> </p><p>However, it is up to providers of NHS care to assure themselves
that they are doing everything reasonable to determine the eligibility of patients
who are entitled to receive free NHS care, an entitlement based on residency not nationality.</p><p>
</p><p>The Department has published extensive guidance on implementing the overseas
visitor charging regulations. This guidance is for use by all frontline staff providing
National Health Service funded services, as well as the providers and commissioners
of those services. It is available at the following link:</p><p> </p><p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-overseas-visitors-hospital-charging-regulations"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-overseas-visitors-hospital-charging-regulations</a></p><p><strong>
</strong></p><p>The guidance clearly sets out that urgent or immediately necessary
care must never be withheld, regardless of an individual’s ability to pay for the
treatment. Clinicians are required to make the decision on whether treatment is urgent
or immediately necessary for those patients identified as not eligible for NHS-funded
care, taking into account a realistic expectation of when the individual is expected
to leave the UK. As a result of the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors)
(Amendment) Regulations 2017 patients are required to pay in advance if treatment
is decided by a clinician to not be non-urgent. The Department has been carrying out
a review of these Amendment Regulations, with evidence submitted by 31 organisations
or individuals representing vulnerable migrants. The evidence is currently being considered
and stakeholders will receive an update in due course.</p><p> </p><p>It is also worth
noting that that the Charging Regulations already have extensive safeguards in place
for the most vulnerable. Refugees, asylum seekers, some state supported failed asylum
seekers and victims of modern slavery are all exempt from the Charging Regulations.</p><p><strong>
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