The NHS isn’t an organisation normally associated with debt recovery, but recent news headlines suggest it is attempting to recover more cash from what are referred to as health tourists.
News that health tourists are getting away without paying in many cases is likely to add fuel to the problems already facing the NHS when it comes to finances. According to reports, a total of eight trusts haven’t charged foreign patients who have benefitted from various procedures.
To counter this, debt collection companies have been recruited to go out to hospitals and collect payments directly. It is hoped that this will go some way to recovering more than the £255 million of the £500 million it cost to treat health tourists in 2015 according to National Audit Office figures.
Part of the failure to collect money owed has been largely put down to a lack of anyone available to take responsibility for recovery of costs. Doctors and nurses felt that it wasn’t their job to chase patients for payment and this led to the eight trusts failing to collect any payments at all from patients who were not eligible to receive free treatment on the NHS.