#RSS Feed for NHS articles - Telegraph.co.uk < img alt="dcsimg" id="dcsimg" width="1" height="1" src="//webtrends.telegraph.co.uk/dcsshgbi400000gscd62rrg43_4o2o/njs.gif ?MLC=&Channel=&Genre=&Category=&Content_Type=&Level=&source=&dcsuri=/no javascript&WT.js=No&WT.tv=10.2.10&dcssip=www.telegraph.co.uk"/> [p?c1=2&c2=6035736&cv=2.0&cj=1] Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit Monday 06 January 2014 * Home * News * World * Sport * Finance * Comment * Culture * Travel * Life * Women * Fashion * Luxury * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Women * Men * Motoring * Health * Property * Gardening * Food * History * Relationships * Expat * Puzzles * Announcements * Shop * Health News * Health Advice * Diet and Fitness * Wellbeing * Expat Health * Pets Health 1. Home» 2. Health» 3. NHS NHS foreigner charge 'opens floodgates to criminal gangs' Plans to charge migrants and foreign students £200 to access the NHS will be "extraordinary attractive" to health tourists, including organised crime, doctors warn Plans to charge migrants and foreign students £200 to access the NHS will be Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt hopes to recover up to £500 million a year charging migrants and foreign students to access the NHS Photo: CHRISTOPHER PLEDGER FOR THE TELEGRAPH By Steven Swinford, Senior Political Correspondent 10:00PM GMT 29 Oct 2013 Follow Comments Comments Charging foreigners £200 to access the NHS will "open the floodgates" to criminal gangs who bring heavily pregnant women from Africa to give birth in Britain, leading doctors have warned. They said that pregnant women are routinely flown from Africa to give birth on the NHS, often to more than one child, in a practise so common it has become known in hospitals as the "Lagos shuttle". The doctors said the lack of restrictions on IVF treatment abroad mean many of the women are give birth to twins or triplets, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds to the NHS each time. They warned that the government's plans to charge migrants and foreign students staying in the UK a £200 NHS surcharge will act as a form of "insurance" and be "extraordinary attractive" to health tourists. Professor J Meirion Thomas, a cancer specialist at the Royal Marsden hospital in London, said that about 5 per cent of his patients were health tourists. Related Articles * Back to the old days of patients dying in agony 03 Nov 2013 * 300 NHS blunders so bad they should never happen in just one year 02 Sep 2013 * Jeremy Hunt: NHS risks losing support bacause of BBC-style excessive pay 28 Oct 2013 * Martina Cole’s arthritis is the real crime 27 Oct 2013 * Doctors to face regular competence tests following Harold Shipman murders 25 Oct 2013 * Western health care is 'stuck in the sickbay' 26 Oct 2013 He told the House of Commons Immigration Bill committee: "If you go to obstetrics at St Thomas's across there they would talk to you about the Lagos shuttle. "I think there's organised crime behind this, by that I mean people pay an amount of money to come into the country. They are given accommodation, told exactly how to answer the right questions. "Maternity tourism the biggest problem is west Africa. We have HFEA rules where only two fertilised ova can be put in any one cycle. There you have high incidents of multiple births. Women come in with the same name, the same age, same address but different blood groups." "It's awful for me as a doctor to have to treat someone who I know is ineligible. I have to cancel a legitimate patient for surgery because there's a health tourist who is ineligible for care who is breaching the NHS rules for two day care. It really bothers me. It really happens so often. Weekly I would say." Professor Terence Stephenson, chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, said that the surcharge should reflect the cost of treatment. He said: "A flat levy is clearly a nonsense. £200 wouldn't pay didley squit for one consultation. A single inhaler for asthma costs £55. "It doesn't make any sense at all. You would have to match the cost to what people were taking out of the system for it to make any sense." His concerns were shared by Clare Gerada, the chairman of the Royal College of GPs. She said: "It's not going to deter organised crime. It opens the floodgates to anyone that wants to have free healthcare. It would rapidly become a nonsense." Earlier this month the government published a research paper which suggested that health tourism costs the NHS more than £2 billion a year. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt hopes to recover up to £500 million a year, arguing Britain cannot afford an ‘international health service’. The Home Office plans a new annual levy of £150 on foreign students and £200 on temporary migrants. The surcharge is expected to generate £200 million. The Department for Health said foreigners paying the surcharge to access the health service would need to have a student visa or a job in the UK to qualify for treatment. A spokesman said: "The health surcharge is not a charge for visitors to the United Kingdom. It is only for people coming here on a visa. "If you were the woman who was pregnant with triplets, for you to get access to our healthcare by paying the surcharge you would either have to get a job with someone who was a sponsored employer, or you would have to get a visa as a student, be accepted at a university and pay the fees." Dr Gerada also said that Britain will experience an "explosion" of expats returning to Britain for treatment who will be "almost impossible to identify". She said: "There are a whole bunch of expats who actually live abroad and come back twice a year. They are almost impossible to identify. I would predict that there is going to be an explosion of this group. "They are going to be returning the UK and wanting the treatment that they can't afford in Spain. That's a group I would be quite worried about." NHS * News » * UK News » * Health » * Health News » * Steven Swinford » In NHS Man running up stairs Health advice: working out on an empty stomach Prof Jane Maher said survival rates also mirrored levels of deprivation, with poorer people less likely to seek help early. 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