Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the cost of secondary care provided to foreign nationals who were not entitled to free treatment. [155577]

Anna Soubry, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health: The Department is not able to make a reliable estimate of the cost to the national health service of providing secondary care to foreign nationals who were not entitled to free treatment because the NHS does not currently have robust enough systems in place to identify every foreign national who should pay for hospital treatment.

The Department has commissioned a piece of work to better understand the extent of the use of the NHS by migrants and visitors.

The Department has recently concluded a major review of the rules and procedures on charging visitors and migrants for NHS care and over the summer we will consult on proposals to make the system fairer and ensure that people who should pay for NHS services do in fact do so. This will include improving how the NHS can identify, charge and recover charges where they should apply.

| Hansard