UK National Health Service -

[Bazle 1,357]

If you are a Brit living in LOS, you might think that you can just go back to Blighty at any time and avail yourself of the NHS if needs be. However, that might not be the case. Here is a link to the relevant website, with some extracts from the site copied below.

 

http://www.dh.gov.uk/PolicyAndGuidance/Int...&chk=qv2fY/

 

Are you spending more than 3 months living outside the United Kingdom?

 

What if I should need hospital treatment?

 

Under the current Regulations, anyone who spends more than 3 months living outside the UK is no longer automatically entitled to free NHS hospital treatment in England. Whether you remain entitled depends on the nature of your residence abroad.

 

Extended holidays

 

If you are going abroad for a one-off extended holiday for a few months, then you will continue to be fully exempt from charges for NHS hospital treatment when you return to resume your permanent residence in the UK. The same will apply to your spouse and children (under the age of 16, or 19 if in further education) if they are living with you in the UK on a permanent basis.

 

Once you are living here permanently you will become ordinarily resident and the Regulations will cease to apply to you. Your spouse and child will also be considered ordinarily resident if they are living permanently in the UK with you. If they are not living permanently in the UK then the Regulations will apply and in order to be entitled to free hospital treatment they will have to meet one of the categories of exemption in their own right.

 

In common with those ordinarily resident in the UK, anyone who meets the criteria of ordinary residence or is exempt from charges for hospital treatment will have to pay statutory NHS charges, eg prescription charges, unless they also qualify for exemption from these, and will have to go on to waiting lists for treatment where appropriate.

 

Living in a non-bilateral healthcare agreement country?

 

If you choose to go and live permanently in a country with which the UK does not have a bilateral health agreement, then you will not normally be eligible for free NHS hospital treatment during a visit to the UK, no matter how long you may have lived here in the past. You may, however, be exempt from charges if you meet one of the other exemption criteria, for example because you are working abroad and have been doing so for less than 5 years.

 

Living in both the UK and another country?

 

If you spend time living in another country on a regular basis each year, for example because you spend four months living in a second home during the winter but return to the UK for the summer, then you may not be eligible for free hospital treatment while you live here. If the other country is one with which the UK has a bilateral health agreement state then the partial exemption described above will apply to you if you are registered as resident in that country. If you are not registered as resident in that country, or if the other country is not one with which there is a bilateral health agreement, then you will not be entitled to free NHS hospital treatment during the time you live here, unless you meet one of the other exemption criteria.

 

If you are in receipt of an UK state retirement pension then a different part of the Regulations applies to you. Please see the page 'Are you a UK state pensioner spending more than 3 months living outside the United Kingdom?'.

 

Returning to the UK after a period of time living away?

 

If you go anywhere abroad for more than three months, either for a one-off extended holiday for a few months or to live permanently for several years, but then return to the UK to take up permanent residence here again, then you will be entitled to receive free NHS hospital treatment from the day you return. So will your spouse and children (under the age of 16, or 19 if in further education) if they are also living with you permanently in the UK again.

 

Once you are living here permanently you will become ordinarily resident and the Regulations will cease to apply to you. Your spouse and child will also be considered ordinarily resident if they are living permanently in the UK with you. If they are not living permanently in the UK then the Regulations will apply and in order to be entitled to free hospital treatment they will have to meet one of the categories of exemption in their own right.

 

In common with those ordinarily resident in the UK, anyone who meets the criteria of ordinary residence or is exempt from charges for hospital treatment will have to pay statutory NHS charges, eg prescription charges, unless they also qualify for exemption from these, and will have to go on to waiting lists for treatment where appropriate.

[monkeyman 1,537]

Who'd want to go into an NHS hospital anyway?

 

You'd stand less chance of being killed in Baghdad.

[Cennn3 0]

If you were sick and needed to go to hospital you would have no problem what so ever, does not matter where you are from or where you live, they will treat you. I doubt very much they will charge you, especially if you have a British accent.

People are coming to the UK all the time from other countires and getting free medical aid then going back home.

[conley 2]

Who'd want to go into an NHS hospital anyway?

 

You'd stand less chance of being killed in Baghdad. 

Somewhat harsh I would say. NHS doctors and nurses performed miracles in keeping my mother alive against all odds over a period of five months. She eventaually made as a full a recovery as one could hope for considering her age.

[nidnoyham 30]

I doubt very much they will charge you, especially if you have a British accent.

People are coming to the UK all the time from other countires and getting free medical aid then going back home.

Is that a Punjabi/ Pakistani/ Somalian or Eastern European British accent ?

[wacmedia 277]

Hi,

 

I have just one experience of a hospital and it was a good one. I had an accident and was operated on within hours. Think NHS is good but too many freeloaders, some rich, are coming in to avail of services with seemingly no procedures in place to weed them out. I think it is Government policy not to ask people for passports or any of that sort of thing.

[EnglishPaul 3]

Hi Bazle- Thanks for posting, I was unaware of that although I would say Cennn3 right on his post,useful to know.

Cheers

[BongoBill9999 0]

A nice cynical reply MM, but lets be fair. My mother has just had a mastectomy, the treatment she got was first class. My daughter was a premie, two motnths early, just two pounds in weight, same as a bag of sugar...the docs and nurses were marvelous.....she is now a 25 year old with a degree (bit more than her old man!!)

 

We like to knock it but when the stops are are out they aint bad...

[davethailand 91]

Luckily i've got thailands NHS equivilent through paying social insurance and also a private worldwide scheme with AIA.

[monkeyman 1,537]

Somewhat harsh I would say. NHS doctors and nurses performed miracles in keeping my mother alive against all odds over a period of five months. She eventaually made as a full a recovery as one could hope for considering her age.

I was actually thinking of superbugs rather than the staff. But I should have said so. Point taken.

 

I'll get me coat.

[nidnoyham 30]

I can't see this rule ever being enforced, they can't even sort out foreign criminals, what chance of Brit's who spend a few months away from home ? With the cuts in the NHS. most staff wont give a toss anyway.

 

They are missing the point, many people spend time abroad to get hospital treatment, so are avoiding the NHS.

[som nam na 0]

Does the article mean that if I was a sex traffiker drug dealing yugslavian war criminal come to the UK I would get free NHS but as I am an Brit expat worker I would not?

[jonny_two_combs 3]

Does the article mean that if I was a sex traffiker drug dealing yugslavian war criminal come to the UK I would get free NHS but as I am an Brit expat worker I would not?

yep and it helps if you can turn your self in to a black lesbian one parent jewish family

[pattysteve 33]

If i called my doc,how the hell would he know where ive been the last 6 mnths.

 

Last yr i spent over 3 mnths in LOS during my last week thought id broken my wrist,

bkk pattaya hospital said they couldnt find a brake and told me to check

back home if i was still having a problem.

 

Thats what i did,absolutely no problem even though i told them i injured it in thailand.

[Bazle 1,357]

If i called my doc,how the hell would he know where ive been the last 6 mnths.

Why do you think Mr Blair is so keen on ID cards? It's to enable all the information available to be linked in to each individual.

 

It won't be long before the big national computer will have all your info. on

- travel in and out of the country (from scanned passport),

- where you have been travelling in the UK (from vehicle recognition cameras on motorways),

- your social security claims position (from the DSS computer),

- your medical position (from the NHS computer),

- your tax position (from the HMRC computer),

- your criminal records (from the police computer)

- etc.

 

And it won't be much after that before there is a law enabling the gov't computer to interrogate those of banks etc..

 

Go to the doctor in a few years' time and the first thing he/she will do is push your ID card into a computer slot to access your medical records and the computer will make a loud screaming noise if you are not entitled to be treated

[Lex 0]

Bazle

 

I wouldn't worry too much about that happening. Government departments do not share information and are even less likely to in the future. Our government has tied its own departments in so much red tape surrounding privacy of information that it is almost impossible for one department to share information with another even when it is blindingly obvious that thay should! The chances are it would be an infringement of our so called "human rights" for the NHS to check residency status. But there is always the worry that they might and that's why most honest uk citizens lose out to fraudsters and illegal immigrants who couldn't give a toss about lying!

[nidnoyham 30]

yep and it helps if you can turn your self in to a black lesbian one parent jewish family

Do you remember Linda Beloise ? She was a Labour councilour in London about 10 years ago, she was all of those. Don't hear of her now though.

[leemo 0]

Hi,

 

I have just one experience of a hospital and it was a good one. I had an accident and was operated on within hours. Think NHS is good but too many freeloaders, some rich, are coming in to avail of services with seemingly no procedures in place to weed them out. I think it is Government policy not to ask people for passports or any of that sort of thing.

It's brilliant, and it's free. Not easy keeping 60 million finickity individuals alive and well, but within reason they will patch you up or give you whatever else you need for a healthier and fuller life.

 

I do not use the NHS but those I know who do, with minor to life-threatening conditions, have come out unscathed.

 

Meanwhile, all counts suggest it is being grossly abused by an inestimable number of people from both abroad and within, but somehow it plods along with greater throughput, greater demands thrust upon it, higher standards and expectations from an increasingly demanding public, and yet by some miracle continues to improve, with next year's toys found in every A&E.

 

Eligibility is an issue, and if or when our policymakers abandon political correctness in favour of common sense and raw economics, it will get even better.

 

While there are any number of things that can and do go wrong, people left to die in corridors, not getting the treatment they need or want, communication and information errors causing avoidable distress, ambulances arriving at the scene in 18.3 minutes instead of the 17.6 of 4 years ago, and horror of horrors - that roach found in the Charring Cross Hospital kitchen, these excellent tidbits are sought after and blown up by the leftie media in their insane and unending quest for perfection.

 

The NHS is a black hole. You could double or even triple the billions that are thrown into it, but every penny will be swallowed without so much as a burp, and things will still go wrong.

 

 

leemo

[philr 0]

being a radiographer in the nhs for ten years , and for the last fifteen years worked internationally in healthcare IT, and having worked at a very good good thai private hospital in Thailand I would add the following:

 

1. If ever you have a serious acute accident, or a chronic condition, such as diabets or heart failure, you should live in the UK, the appropriate care does not exist in Thailand - unless you can pay for everything.... my monthly drug bill in thailand would be approx 15K baht. My insulin pump., free in the UK now, would cost 2000 GBP to purchase and more than 100 GBP to run.

 

Thailand is great, and much better than 99% of england, if you:

 

a: can afford private healthcare with no pre-existing conditions.

b,need only limited ongoing care if you live there - I am diabetic. My insulin pump costs 2500 GBP to buy, and 120 GBP to run, before the cost of other drugs or insulin are added.