Critics Slam UK’s Controversial Plan to Digitally Track Overseas Patients

Last updated on October 17th, 2024 at 10:38 am

Proposals to establish a new digital tag for the records of National Health Service (NHS) patients from foreign countries have raised concerns among medical professionals as well as privacy advocates and campaigners for migrants rights. A new data category named “Overseas Visitor Charging” is set to be introduced in national NHS records as part of the proposals the Labour government has taken over from its Conservative predecessor.

Fizza Querishi, chief executive officer of the Migrants’ Rights Network told InfoMigrants, “Plans for a digital tag on NHS records will further isolate undocumented migrants and prevent them from accessing vital healthcare. The new Government has a chance to undo the previous administration’s harmful data-sharing agreements which signaled greater surveillance of migrants and an erosion of their privacy.” 

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The deadline for responses to an NHS England consultation regarding these proposals was Sunday, which would allow the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to gather more information on how frequently hospitals charge migrants for services. Nonetheless, these plans will challenge the Labour government’s stance on the sharing of migrants’ NHS data. This issue sparked controversies due to worries about privacy rights and the growth of the “hostile environment.”

Criticism for Tracking Patients:

Concerns about the proposals were expressed by medConfidential, an organization dedicated to health data privacy which claimed the new data would allow the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to examine a doctor’s and a hospital’s judgment that someone’s care is free at the point of delivery.

“If there’s a mistake in the government’s databases, you’d have no way to know about it until a large bill arrives. The previous Conservative governments’ ‘hostile environment’ is still watching every patient in every hospital. The Department of Health in England can decide patients owe ‘the NHS’ without the patient having any idea that it happened until they next apply for a visa or try to enter the country again,” Stated by Sam Smith, the coordinator of medConfidential.

The British Medical Association (BMA) mentioned that its members are “fully aware” of what the doctors association called the “deterrent impact of the charging regime and associated data sharing policies, meaning some of the most vulnerable people in society are forced to avoid seeking healthcare that they desperately need.”

Anna Miller who leads policy and advocacy at Doctors of the World, an organization that operates clinics for undocumented migrants, trafficking victims and asylum seekers stated, “Major data-sharing arrangements like this one make it very difficult for us to reassure patients that hospitals are safe places and that patient confidentiality will be respected. Every day in our clinic we see patients who are too afraid to go to NHS services because they worry they will be reported to immigration enforcement.”

Dr. John Firth, chair of the BMA international committee commented, “Healthcare and immigration enforcement should be completely separate. Doctors want to provide care to the person in front of them, not act as an extension to the border enforcement agency.”

A previous initiative utilizing NHS data to locate patients believed to be violating immigration regulations was discontinued following a legal challenge in 2018 by groups including the Migrants’ Rights Network (MRN).

It is previously reported concerns raised in 2023 when it came to light that NHS records of migrants would have a Home Office reference number attached, raising worries regarding potential tracking, privacy rights and the extension of the “hostile environment.”

NHS England was instructed by a senior civil servant writing on behalf of the then-health secretary, Steve Barclay, to accept and keep “Home Office reference numbers” in the records of “relevant patients.”