Here is an article from a while back regarding the how the NHS is being abused. This Telegraph article reports:
'Ministers have confirmed that GPs do not need to ask prospective patients for ID or proof of address when registering them, raising fresh fears over “health tourism”. It allows foreign nationals who arrive in England on a six-month visitors visa to begin receiving health care immediately. But the pressure group Migration Watch UK says that it could also mean illegal immigrants getting NHS treatment. Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the organisation, said: “What this means is that someone getting off a plane with a valid visitors visa, is, in effect, able to access the GP services of the NHS without ever having paid a penny into the system. Over one and a half million such visas were issued last year. “And once registered with a GP it is, in practice, an easy step to potentially highly expensive and long term treatment - all at the expense of the UK taxpayer with little or no prospect of the beneficiaries ever being charged for it.” 'Ah the NHS, it's 'the envy of the world' and also usable by anyone who manages to get to this country.
1 comment:
As a former nurse I experienced this little game first hand. We had a patient in who spoke no English which wasn't unusual. His relatives confirmed his name & address.
We pulled his medical notes and boy were they thick. There we were treating him and with each passing shift, new doctors came on and reread the mans notes.
This happened right up until some sharp eyed doctor stumbled upon something and went back and forth between the patient and his notes, checking and double checking. He even asked the relatives if this was really Mr X from the address on the notes. Very insistent they were that was indeed him.
At which point the doc asked them why the man in the bed no longer had any evidence on his body of having had a kidney removed as described in his medical notes.
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