Once, foreign nationals came to Britain to freeload on the NHS. Today, UK residents visit other countries for medical treatment. Last year, it has emerged, 523,000 British people went abroad for their healthcare. The top five most popular destinations were Turkey, Poland, Romania, Portugal and India.
Does this matter? Health secretary Wes Streeting seems to think so. Responding to the news, he said: ‘It is appalling that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers have been forced to go abroad for medical treatment they should be accessing for free on the NHS.’ It wasn’t clear whether this was a mea culpa that the health service he runs isn’t up to scratch, or whether he was trying to blame the Conservatives, who were in power for half the period in question.
Either way, he’s overreacting. The top destination by a long way is Turkey, which has established a reputation among UK customers for affordable cosmetic surgery. You only have to take a flight back from Istanbul to see rows of people with bandaged faces. But facelifts and boob jobs are not operations which are routinely offered on the NHS, and quite rightly so. Or is Streeting telling us that he wants to force the taxpayer to fund people’s vanity?
Polish residents of the UK are returning to Poland for treatment, Romanians to Romania and so on. Perhaps they are motivated to do this because of the inadequacies of the NHS, but then again they might be choosing to return to their home countries because they know and trust a doctor there, or because they are completing a course of treatment which was begun in their home countries. Either way, it seems quite fortuitous for UK taxpayers that they are making this choice.
I am all in favour of a public healthcare system which is free, to our own country’s taxpayers, at the point of delivery. But I don’t see why it has to be the only choice on offer, or that government ministers should huff and puff when people do make the choice to be treated elsewhere. On the contrary, it should be encouraged on the grounds that it takes pressure off the NHS. Streeting’s remarks give away a belief that seems to be standard among Labour people, although traditionally ones a little to the left of Streeting: that the NHS is a sacred socialist construct and that no-one should ever dare to disrespect it by seeking treatment elsewhere. Do so, goes the thinking, and you are guilty of queue-jumping, trying to get ahead of your fellow countrymen through the vulgar exercise of your wallet.
A government more committed to free trade and enterprise could quite easily turn that figure around and say that 523,000 left to Britain to seek healthcare, and particularly private healthcare, in other countries last year. That is a good start, but we are going to set a target to double cross-border trade healthcare this year, with our own private health clinics and hospitals competing with those abroad. This will help to free up NHS services for those UK residents who really need them.
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