Overseas visitor charge for using A&E

Ayr_Rage

A blood test, quick examination and a pain killer certainly doesn't sound as if A&E was the appropriate place to treat her.

She should claim on her travel insurance.

As for the hospital having a gastronomy department, the NHS must be doing better in your area.

soolin

GrubbyGirl_2 said:

Rich2808 said:

Its the NHS - they almost certainly won't follow up on the threat.

But it is the UK National Health Service - not the International Health Service - intended for taxpaying UK residents. We don't have any reciprocal health agreement with Turkey - like with the EU via EHIC - so treatment is not free. So visitors from Turkey need health insurance to cover not emergency care.

The NHS most certainly will.  All government departments work together on this so chances are she won't get back into the country without paying.  The NHS started clamping down on this when ex pats were returning to the UK to have their babies thinking that because they are British they were entitled toe free NHS care.  Even if you're born here, unless you are contributing to the state you don't get free care you have to be able to prove that you are ordinarily resident in the UK.  Government systems talk to each other more these days so more and more people are being caught out

I agree, with everything being coded and computerised it is now very easy to notify the relevant departments when they get an overseas default like this. It takes no effort on behalf of the NHS trust, they just send a return at intervals and it is collated centrally and dealt with.

Voyager2002

dan_starstream said:

My sister in law came to visit from Turkey.  She had severe pain and so my wife took her to A&E.  For some reason she was not triaged in A&E but sent straight to gastronomy department, where she had a blood test, a quick examination with a Doctor, and a pain killer.  We now have received a bill for over £1,000 because she is an overseas visitor.  I responded with a letter stating she wanted A&E and was never informed of potential costs or that she wasn't in A&E.  We received another letter informing us that she was chargeable and if unpaid it will effect her future VISA applications and the debt will be passed on to a debt agency.  We don't have that kind of money to splash about but I don't know where to turn.

None of the answers have addressed the essential point: she went for a service that is not chargeable, and without any explanation was transferred to a service that was not free. In law, for a contract to be formed it is essential that the "client" is made aware that they are receiving a service for which they will be charged, and this applies to NHS trusts just as much as it does to any private business. If the Trust were to take her to court, they would lose. 

Did the letter give details of the complaints procedure? I find it interesting that you received a reply that did not address the very valid point that you raised.

TELLIT01

The hospital decides where a patient will be treated, not the patient or anybody acting on their behalf.  Even if she had been triaged at A&E, and further treatment would have been chargeable

I'm actually please to see that at least some hospitals are now charging foreign nationals for non emergency treatment.

Voyager2002

TELLIT01 said:

The hospital decides where a patient will be treated, not the patient or anybody acting on their behalf.  Even if she had been triaged at A&E, and further treatment would have been chargeable

I'm actually please to see that at least some hospitals are now charging foreign nationals for non emergency treatment.

The patient obviously has the option to refuse treatment.

In this case, the patient attended A and E believing that she was experiencing a medical emergency. Someone decided that this was not the case: all that was necessary was to tell her this, and giving her the option of continuing or deferring further treatment. They failed to do so.

An analogy: many of us visit Spain and rely on our GHIC cards. Imagine going to a public hospital there, secure that we would not have to pay for treatment, and then being moved to an expensive private ward, without being told. That is a very similar situation to what the OP experienced. 

Aylesbury_Duck

Voyager2002 said:

TELLIT01 said:

The hospital decides where a patient will be treated, not the patient or anybody acting on their behalf.  Even if she had been triaged at A&E, and further treatment would have been chargeable

I'm actually please to see that at least some hospitals are now charging foreign nationals for non emergency treatment.

The patient obviously has the option to refuse treatment.

In this case, the patient attended A and E believing that she was experiencing a medical emergency. Someone decided that this was not the case: all that was necessary was to tell her this, and giving her the option of continuing or deferring further treatment. They failed to do so.

An analogy: many of us visit Spain and rely on our GHIC cards. Imagine going to a public hospital there, secure that we would not have to pay for treatment, and then being moved to an expensive private ward, without being told. That is a very similar situation to what the OP experienced. 

That's a good point and a fair comparison.

However, how does OP's SIL go about getting the debt cancelled and more crucially, remove any markers that might appear on systems that could prevent her travelling to the UK in future?  Is there a risk that she's unable to deal with it from Turkey (and would any action from there be successful?) and the travel markers remain, even if enforcement of the debt is impossible?

LightFlare

The unknown is what was actually said to her in full / bear in mind, she may not have actually understood or have had issues communicating.


we are getting third hand information 

Pollycat

LightFlare said:

The unknown is what was actually said to her in full / bear in mind, she may not have actually understood or have had issues communicating.


we are getting third hand information 

Indeed we are.
The OP's wife was with the patient.
Not the OP.

And I think the answer to this is key:

dan_starstream said:

My sister in law came to visit from Turkey.  She had severe pain and so my wife took her to A&E.  For some reason she was not triaged in A&E but sent straight to gastronomy department, where she had a blood test, a quick examination with a Doctor, and a pain killer.  

born_again

Voyager2002 said:

dan_starstream said:

My sister in law came to visit from Turkey.  She had severe pain and so my wife took her to A&E.  For some reason she was not triaged in A&E but sent straight to gastronomy department, where she had a blood test, a quick examination with a Doctor, and a pain killer.  We now have received a bill for over £1,000 because she is an overseas visitor.  I responded with a letter stating she wanted A&E and was never informed of potential costs or that she wasn't in A&E.  We received another letter informing us that she was chargeable and if unpaid it will effect her future VISA applications and the debt will be passed on to a debt agency.  We don't have that kind of money to splash about but I don't know where to turn.

None of the answers have addressed the essential point: she went for a service that is not chargeable, and without any explanation was transferred to a service that was not free. In law, for a contract to be formed it is essential that the "client" is made aware that they are receiving a service for which they will be charged, and this applies to NHS trusts just as much as it does to any private business. If the Trust were to take her to court, they would lose. 

Did the letter give details of the complaints procedure? I find it interesting that you received a reply that did not address the very valid point that you raised.

Is A/E a non chargeable service?

https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/visiting-or-moving-to-england/how-to-access-nhs-services-in-england-if-you-are-visiting-from-abroad/

While the OP did visit A/E, they were passed onto another specialist department to deal with the problem, which you would expect. As A/E can/do not deal with everything.

Murphybear

Ayr_Rage said:

A blood test, quick examination and a pain killer certainly doesn't sound as if A&E was the appropriate place to treat her.

She should claim on her travel insurance.

As for the hospital having a gastronomy department, the NHS must be doing better in your area.

Judging from the food in some hospitals they could so with a gastronomy department