Foreign health tourists leave NHS with £150m of unpaid bills which could pay for 6,000 nurses as medics say charging them is ‘racist’

, hospital staff are reluctant to chase patients for payments after medical groups suggested to decision to charge them is "racist".

Tory MP Philip Davies told the paper: “It is the National Health Service, not an international health service and it is essential these charges are made for overseas visitors.”

Only people who have lived in the UK for at least six months and are paying taxes are supposed to be entitled to free NHS care.

It is the National Health Service, not an international health service and it is essential these charges are made for overseas visitors

Philip Davies

And in 2017, the Department of Health issued new guidance which told staff to highlight overseas patients and ask them for their passports and proof of utility bills.

They were told to give them invoices before receiving treatment.

However, one group known as Docs Not Cops, claim cancer sufferers have been “wrongly denied NHS treatment because they have been perceived to be foreign”.

The Mail reports they are discouraging staff from handing out bills to overseas patients and to question their colleagues if they ask for passports.

TRAGIC MUM

Three years ago, Nigerian mum Priscilla, then 43, gave birth to quadruplets in thee UK but tragically lost two of them.

She cost the NHS £500,000 because she had no way of paying after she went into labour as she flew home via Heathrow after being turned away by the US.

Medics at St Mary’s Hospital in West London battled to save the babies, who were born at 24 weeks.

One died instantly and the other three treated for at least ten weeks in a neonatal ICU at £2,000 each per day.

Philip Hollobone, the 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.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman told the paper: “Every taxpayer supports the health service and so it is only right overseas visitors contribute towards their treatment costs.

“All NHS trusts must charge 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.”

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