Wayne Farah

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Newham Health Impact Assessment
Wayne Farah Vice-Chair Newham PCT
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Proposals to Exclude Overseas Visitors

• Link free use of the NHS to citizenship
• Bring eligibility for GP services in line
  hospitals
• Restrict those deemed ineligible to the receipt
  of emergency or immediately necessary treatment
• Ensure failed asylum seekers and undocumented
  migrants are not eligible for free primary care

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FINDINGS

• Unnecessary
• Unhelpful
• Uneconomic
• Unwelcome

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UNECCESSARY

• 66 GPs already identify OV
• 70 have no OV registered
• 53 predict increased use of AE
• 74 new system for emergency access
• 92 training for practice staff

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UNHELPFUL

• Most OV are family of BME residents
• 53 proposals would impact on ethics
• 40 predict additional barrier for BME
• 40 predict increased discrimination
• 70 want statutory HIA

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UNECONOMIC

• 0.6 of GP referrals identified as OV
• OV access 1200 GP consultations 36K
• Walk in Centre 400 consultations 10K
• Total Cost NHS lt 200m per annum

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UNWELCOME

• Public Health
• Rationing
• Privatisation

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ANEURIN BEVAN

• One of the consequences of the universality of
  the British Health Service is the free treatment
  of foreign visitors Why should people come to
  Britain and enjoy the benefits of the free Health
  Service when they do not subscribe to the
  national revenues? The fact is, of course, that
  visitors to Britain subscribe to the national
  revenues as soon as they start consuming... How
  do we distinguish a visitor from anybody else?
  Are British citizens to carry means of
  identification everywhere to prove that they are
  not visitors? For if the sheep are to be
  separated from the goats both must be classified.
  What began as an attempt to keep the Health
  Service for ourselves would end by being a
  nuisance to everybody. Happily, this is one of
  those occasions when generosity and convenience
  march together The whole agitation has a nasty
  taste. Instead of rejoicing at the opportunity to
  practice a civilized principle they have tried
  to exploit the most disreputable emotions to
  discredit socialized medicine (In Place of Fear
  1952).