Daily Mail - 27.08.2019

Page 6 QQQ Daily Mail, Tuesday, August 27, 2019

few years. In east London, Barts Health
Trust is chasing £27.8million of unpaid
bills, including £467,000 from one patient,
whose nationality or identity was not dis-
closed when questions were asked.
Although London hospitals have the
highest debts, 23 NHS organisations
across England are owed at least £1mil-
lion from foreign patients.
In total, responses from 91 hospital
trusts show they are owed £149.5million.
But the true cost may be many millions
more, with around a third of trusts –
another 60 – failing to provide details.
In addition, the figures only account for
those patients flagged up as an ‘overseas
visitor’ who were charged for their care.
Many others may have had free treat-
ment as staff presumed they were UK resi-
dents, or chose to turn a blind eye as part
of a new drive from within the service.
This is despite tough new guidance
issued by the Department of Health at
the end of 2017 instructing staff to prop-
erly identify overseas visitors by asking
for passports and utility bills, and to hand
out invoices before starting treatment.
The new rules are strongly opposed by
doctors’ leaders, including the influential
British Medical Association, with some
members describing them as racist. One

pressure group called Docs Not Cops is
actively discouraging staff from handing
out bills and urges them to challenge col-
leagues if they are seen to check patients’
passports. Other influential bodies
including the Royal College of Midwives
and the Royal College of Paediatricians

overseas visitors for the care they

receive, unless an exemption

applies, and to rigorously pursue

any outstanding bills. We’ve made

good progress in the last few years,

with £1.3billion recovered.’

Comment – Page 16

‘This money could

go a very long way’

Continued from Page One

and Child Health have warned the
charges will deter vulnerable preg-
nant women and mothers with
sick children from seeking help.
The NHS tries to recover unpaid
bills from individuals rather than
the countries they are from, unless
they are EU citizens.
MPs said the £150million owed
by overseas patients could be
used to pay for social care, addi-
tional frontline staff or vital treat-
ment such as cataract surgery.
Philip Hollobone, Tory MP for
Kettering, said: ‘Well-paid NHS
bosses who fail to charge visitors
for using our health service should
have action taken against them.
‘That £150million could go a very
long way in paying for thousands
more doctors, nurses and badly
needed healthcare.’
Mr Davies, MP for Shipley, said:
‘The BMA are always the first to
say the NHS needs more money,
and so they can help deliver that
by helping to ensure these large
sums of money are collected and
put back into the NHS.’
By law only patients classed as

answered a freedom of informa-

tion request, St George’s Univer-

sity Hospitals trust in south Lon-

don is trying to recoup £8.3million,

Chelsea and Westminster Trust is

owed £5million, and Epsom and

St Helier in Kent £5.5million. A

Department of Health and Social

Care spokesman said: ‘Every tax-

payer supports the health service

and so it is only right overseas vis-

itors contribute towards their

treatment costs.

‘All NHS trusts must charge

‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK –

living here for at least six months

and paying taxes – are entitled to

free NHS care in hospitals.

As well as King’s College and

Barts, many other trusts are owed

large amounts. Of those which

ONE hospital is still chasing a bill of

more than £500,000 from a Nige-

rian mother who gave birth to

quadruplets in 2016.

Priscilla, who was 43 at the time,

went into labour shortly after land-

ing at Heathrow airport.

She had intended to fly to Chicago

to have her babies, but was turned

away by US officials who claimed

she would be unable to afford the

healthcare costs.

Priscilla was returning to Nigeria

via London when she started to

have contractions three months

before her due date. She was taken

to Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea

Hospital in west London, part of

Imperial College Hospital, where

she delivered the four babies.

Tragically, two died shortly after-

wards because they were so pre-

mature. The other two, Elijah and

Esther, spent weeks on the hospi-

tal’s neonatal intensive care ward.

Priscilla’s case was brought to

light by the BBC documentary Hos-

pital. Staff estimate the total bill

for her complicated birth and sub-

sequent care of the babies was

over £500,000. Her current where-

abouts are unknown.

Premature

quads cost

us £500,

Intensive care: Priscilla gave birth to quadruplets at a west London hospital in 2016

AMBULANCE trusts are increas-

ingly relying on private ambulances

and taxis for 999 calls, an investiga-

tion has found.
Some £92million was spent on the
vehicles to transport patients in
the past year alone.
In parts of the South, almost one in five
emergency calls result in a private ambu-
lance being sent to the scene.
Earlier this year, the Care Quality Com-
mission (CQC) published a damning report,
warning the practice was putting patients
at risk. It found some private firms were
failing to obtain references or carry out
criminal records checks, while a lack of staff
training put patients’ safety at risk.
In one example an ‘extremely confused’
dialysis patient was found wandering in the
street after staff failed to make sure he got
into his home safely.
Data from the ten ambulance trusts in
England was obtained via the Freedom of
Information Act. It showed that the East of
England Ambulance Service NHS Trust
spent £9,535,027 on private ambulances for
999 and non-urgent work in 2018/19 – dou-
ble the £4,791,155 it spent the year before.
The trust said it had hired hundreds of
staff, but used private ambulances for over-

time and spikes in demand, such as in win-

ter. ‘It takes three years to qualify as a

paramedic. We use private services to fill

gaps in budgeted capacity while student

paramedics finish their university studies,’

a spokesman said.

‘Recruiting trained staff is extremely chal-

lenging. While we continue to recruit a sig-

nificant number of patient-facing staff, we

use private ambulance services so we can

respond to patients as quickly as possible.’

The FoI data showed that West Midlands

Ambulance Service, which lost its contract

to supply non-emergency patient transport

after the bid went to a private firm, spent

nothing on private ambulances in 2018/19.

However, it doubled its spending on taxis to

transport patients for non-urgent work.

On the plus side, some services, such as the

North West Ambulance Service and South

Western Ambulance Service NHS Founda-

tion Trust, were found to have spent less on

private ambulances than the year before.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ash-

worth said: ‘Labour have long warned

against the risky, wasteful practice of priva-

tising patient transport services.

‘[Health Secretary] Matt Hancock prom-

ised “no privatisation on his watch”, yet in

the last few weeks another patient trans-

port service in Worcestershire was priva-

tised, leaving staff in tears and fearing for

their jobs.’ A statement from the Independ-

ent Ambulance Association (IAA) said pri-

vate providers must be registered with the

CQC and are ‘subject to additional and rig-

orous checks by NHS trusts’.

It added: ‘Our view is that monies spent

on independent ambulance providers by

NHS ambulance trusts are an investment

to ensure that the highest standard of care

is provided; it’s also very cost-effective.’

The IAA said it was consulting on guide-

lines for its members ‘that will provide

greater assurance for those commission-

ing services in areas not currently covered

by the CQC’.

Daily Mail Reporter

NHS blows £92m

on private transport

Cash-strapped trusts hire ambulances and taxis

£6million of vaccine blunders

DOCTORS and nurses waste £6.3mil-

lion worth of vital vaccines a year

by leaving fridge doors open or

letting injections expire.

The blunders mean thousands of

refrigerated jab doses are dumped

after they go off. Others given to

babies a few months old may not

work properly if not kept at the

right temperature.

After an NHS probe revealed the

scale of the waste, health bosses

have written to staff ordering them

to take greater care and regularly

check their fridges. Most life-sav-

ing vaccines can go off if allowed to

get too hot.

The wasted vaccines could have

vaccinated more than 100,000 chil-

dren against diseases such as mea-

sles and flu. Errors included not

shutting doors properly, acciden-

tally turning machines off and for-

getting to put unused jabs back in

to stay cool. Many others expired

before they were used because of

poor ‘stock rotation’. At least half

the errors are avoidable.

Picture: BBC

5,

Junior

doctors

(at starting salary)

6,

Nurses’

wages

22,

Hip replacements

102,

Cataract operations

76,

Babies delivered

through a

traditional labour

44,

Caesareans

22,

Heart bypasses

What £150m could fund