Patients at Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre and City hospitals are being asked for ID when they attend some appointments in a bid to cut the numbers of people getting free NHS care they are not entitled to.
As of Monday (July 31) people going to maternity services and fracture clinics must bring two extra documents with them, one to prove their identity and one to prove their address. People who cannot prove their UK residency could be charged for care.
Nottingham is one of several NHS England areas bringing the measure in on a three-month trial, which is also designed to cut cases of mistaken identity.
A statement from Nottingham University Hospitals Trust read: “Checking our patients’ identity is part of providing safe care for everyone. We need to be sure that we have the correct details and the right information about you and your health needs.
“We also need to check whether patients are eligible for NHS funded treatment and care.”
NHS hospital treatment is free to people who are ordinarily resident in the UK.
People who do not normally live in the UK and do not meet one of the exemptions from charges have to pay for any treatment they may need.
This is regardless of whether they are a British citizen, have lived or worked here in the past or have paid UK taxes or National Insurance in the past.
The three-month trial will test how patients and staff adapt to the change, at a time of intense pressure on the NHS across England.
It is also designed to cut deliberate ‘health tourism’ – where people travel to the UK specifically to receive free treatment or who come for other reasons but take advantage of the system when they arrive.
Research commissioned by the Department for Health has estimated the gross cost of ‘deliberate’ health tourism for urgent treatment in England to anywhere between £110 million and £280 million – although experts say the figure is almost impossible to measure accurately.
