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Migrant charges

VIGIL SATURDAY 23 OCTOBER – TO MARK 4TH ANNIVERSARY OF UPFRONT MIGRANT CHARGING

 

‘We recognise that NHS staff have to comply with this discriminatory and harmful legislation and we welcome measures the Trust has now taken to minimise the damage the policy causes. We are resolved to continue to work with Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, local organisations and patients to ensure that the damage done by this legislation is minimised until the day it is repealed.’
Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign and Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network

LEWISHAM AND GREENWICH TRUST PUBLISHES INQUIRY REPORT INTO MIGRANT CHARGING PRACTICES AT LEWISHAM AND QE HOSPITALS

The report, commissioned and written by the Trust, is introduced by the Independent Chair Peter Gluckman, who gives a timeline of events, from the raising of questions early in 2019 by the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign to the publication of the report on 29 June 2021.

The report contains important sections: 39 recommendations for improvement (all except 2 accepted by the Trust); a list of the the many detailed questions raised by the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign which the Trust agreed to answer and has mostly done so; brief outlines of patient experiences; an account of a staff workshop. The Campaign and Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network sincerely wishes that the patients’ accounts of their suffering, arising from interviews carried out, had been more prominence in the report. 

The process of the Inquiry Panel was interrupted severely by the Covid pandemic. We welcome the Trust’s determination to follow this through given the difficult times staff have experienced.

We thank Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network for all the work done together as the Inquiry proceeded. 
Thank you to Trust staff who worked on this project in good faith. We sincerely hope to continue working with all parties to ensure that improvements take place and continue. 

Download the report here

 

Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign and Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network issued a joint briefing and statement for the Press:

Date: 13:00 29th June 2021

To comment on the release of the Oversight Panel’s report to Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust Board on Patient Charging today, Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign (SLHC) and Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network (LRMN) have come together to issue a joint statement on what needs to happen next:

“We welcome the publication of the Oversight Panel’s report to Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust Board on Patient Charging today, after 20 months since the Oversight Panel was launched and then delayed by Covid-19.

The Oversight Panel Report highlights the harmful charging practices of Lewisham Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital, including its use of credit check firm Experian, to find ineligible patients to charge, and its pursuit of vulnerable and destitute patients’ debts.

Since 2013 and up until 2019, the Trust shared patient information with Experian to identify patients chargeable for NHS care. The partnership with the credit check firm was approved by NHS Improvement (part of NHS England), who in January 2019 promoted the partnership to eight trusts to carry out similar checks. Thanks in large part to this partnership, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust referred 1,085 debts worth £5.4m to debt firms (that used bailiffs to collect debts) from 2016 to 2018, which was said to be the highest in England according to an investigation by The Guardian in 2019.

During our participation in the Oversight Panel, we heard from patients affected by the Trust’s practices, who described a lack of empathy and compassion from staff as they pursued debt from new mothers, homeless patients, and even some patients who were eligible for free care.

One patient described how their blood pressure rose upon hearing they were being charged, forcing the patient to extend their stay at the hospital. Another patient described how they fell to their knees and screamed as they received their invoice from the Trust while they were living in temporary accommodation.

The Oversight Panel Report reflects much of what we know about this harmful legislation which is putting patients’ lives at risk up and down the country. The immigration system is extremely complex, making it difficult for many to settle their

status and leaving them and their children open to charging despite living and working in the UK for many years.

The charging practices are a result of the hostile environment legislation which has had far reaching effects on universal access to NHS healthcare free at the point of need. Once considered a precious right, the right to healthcare is slowly being chipped away. Today, NHS trusts are being forced to become border guards, demanding documentation, raising invoices, denying treatment and sharing patient details with the Home Office, which only spreads fear and distrust in communities and has prevented many from seeking life-saving care.

We welcomed Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust’s initiation of a panel inquiry into the Trust’s charging practices. This was in response to questions in the press in September 2019, and from advocacy organisations, on their charging practices. The inquiry panel’s membership included patient advocates, campaigners, Trust staff and a leading national clinician.

We have participated in the panel in order to reduce the harm of the policy. But we remain completely opposed to the legislation that is part of the continuing Hostile Environment and which we believe will continue to harm patients in the future. Organisations such as ourselves and many others will continue to campaign to end these charges once and for all.

We recognise that NHS staff have to comply with this discriminatory and harmful legislation and we welcome measures the Trust has now taken to minimise the damage the policy causes. We are resolved to continue to work with Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, local organisations and patients to ensure that the damage done by this legislation is minimised until the day it is repealed.

We call on Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust to share the report and the recommendations with local authorities – including Lewisham Council of Sanctuary, and professional bodies, health unions and NHS trusts throughout England.

And we call for a public meeting in the near future with Lewisham Council, Borough of Sanctuary on these issues including an update on the Trust’s progress towards meeting the inquiry panel’s recommendations.”

Download the report here

PRESS REPORTS

 
1. Newsshopper local paper 1st July 2021
2. Independent report Shaun Lintern 9th July 2021
3. Observer report /Guardian on line – Chaminda Jayanetti 11th July 2021
4. Londonnewsonline / South London Press 6th July 2021
 

LEWISHAM PUPILS CALL FOR AN END TO MIGRANT CHARGES
 

School children sent 60 hand-drawn Christmas cards to the chief executive of Lewisham and Greenwich NHS trust calling for an end to migrant charges.

More than sixty pupils from years five and six at St Mary’s CE Primary School in Lewisham decided to campaign on the issue after seeing the effects of the charging policy on their friends and family.

It followed a listening exercise with pupils and parents by Lewisham Citizens, part of community organising group Citizens UK, asking them what they wanted to make change on.
The Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign congratulates the pupils for raising this important issue.
Read more here in the NewsShopper

 

PLACARD PROTEST TO MARK INTRODUCTION 3 YEARS AGO OF CRUEL UPFRONT CHARGES FOR MIGRANTS
Friday 23 October at 8am we held a socially distanced placard protest together with Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network
against the government’s hostile environment in the NHS. It is three whole years sińce upfront charges were introduced as an even more cruel feature of the government’s NHS charging system. Our protest was quieter than usual due to COVID safety precautions but it was good to stand there in solidarity together.
End charges for migrants in the NHS! End the hostile environment! Healthcare is a human right!

 

OUR VIGIL AT LEWISHAM HOSPITAL ON 23 OCTOBER 2019 IN COLLABORATION WITH DOCS NOT COPS AND LEWISHAM REFUGEE AND MIGRANT NETWORK
The vigil took place to mark two years since the introduction of the most draconian form of the government legislation, to highlight how those policies that are being delivered via the Trust, and our opposition to use by the Trust of the Experian credit company for data checking patients. 50 people from our campaign as well as a wide range of organisations and NHS staff took part: Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network, Labour Party, Lewisham Pensioners Forum.

JANUARY 2020 LEWISHAM AND GREENWICH TRUST LAUNCHES INDEPENDENT INQUIRY INTO USE OF EXPERIAN AND CHARGING MIGRANTS POLICY 

The Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign has written to ask the our hospital Trust if they were able to ameliorate the migrant charges regime during the Covid-19 crisis. Although assessment and treatment of Covid-19 is not charged for, as it is a notifiable disease, the impact of fear in patients of approaching NHS secondary services and being charged and reported to the Home Office is a real threat. At least one person has died from not accessing advice and care for COVID and there are suspicions of much higher numbers dying or not getting treatment.

After the publicity, the Trust launched an Inquiry led by an independent chair, into its use of the Experian database to check patients’ finance records in order to establish residence status. The Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign had raised many questions with the Trust and some members of the Campaign including our Chair, Lewisham GP Dr Louise Irvine and Tony O’Sullivan, Co-Chair of Keep Our NHS Public, are included in the Inquiry Panel, as well as Council and Trust representatives, Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network. The Inquiry began in January and there was a very positive Day 1 on 27 January. Understandably the March, May and June Panel meeting were cancelled as the Trust organised to meet the challenge of Covid-19. Part of the Inquiry has been for members of the Inquiry to visit other Trusts. One visit has been held and already there has been some valuable information gained. 

The Inquiry is due to recommence in September.

The Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign believes that now, more than ever, it is vital to end the hostile environment in the NHS and ensure unfettered access for everyone to free health care. We are one community!

We have called on the Mayor and Council :

  • To do everything in their power to support and encourage ending health charges to migrants and immigration health surcharges on staff from overseas, and to lobby the Government directly and through the Local Government Association
  • To write to the Government demanding an end to these charges saying that it is part of your duty to protect the health of the local population
  • To work with other Councils, particularly across London, to further these ends

The Mayor has replied that he has written to the Secretary of State. 

We are also calling on our MPs to urge the Government: 

  • to drop surcharges for health care on workers from overseas
  • stop all migrant charges and publicise this widely to encourage people to use the NHS when needed

The Lewisham MPs replied that they have written to the Secretary of State.

Vicky Foxcroft replied:
‘As you may be aware, my Labour colleagues and I attempted to deal with some of these issues in our amendments to yesterday’s report stage and third reading of the Immigration and Social Security (EU Withdrawal) Bill, but despite our best efforts the bill passed unamended.
I totally agree with all the points you raise and have now written to the Secretary of State for Health to pass on your concerns. I will of course pass you a copy of the response when I receive it.”

OUR BRIEFING FOR LEWISHAM MPS AND COUNCILLORS ON MIGRANT CHARGING AND OUR LOCAL TRUST 
Download here

Additional paragraph on Experian

PREVIOUSLY…
LEWISHAM AND GREENWICH TRUST USE EXPERIAN TO PATIENTS STATUS FOR CHARGING

The campaign was very disappointed and angry that our Lewisham and Greenwich Trust partnered credit check agency Experian to target patients likely to be charged for NHS care. This story was covered locally in the South London Press and nationally in the Health Service Journal and the Guardian. 
We are hopeful that this will be investigated by the Trust and lessons learned fast.

INFORMATION FROM EARLIER IN 2019
Save Lewisham Hospital campaigners were shocked to read in The Guardian/Observer that Lewisham and Greenwich Trust, among many others, were actively pursuing migrants who had been charged for medical treatment, and were unable to pay, with debt collection agencies.

The Trust say they are obliged legally to carry through this government policy which has accelerated in the last few months. It  means that nationally at  least 600,000 people including 120,000 children are now excluded from NHS treatment, effectively ending the founding principle of the NHS since 1948 that it will deliver universal healthcare.

One of the most vulnerable groups are women denied free NHS maternity care, endangering the lives of mothers and children.

We have been since been in discussion with Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust who along with many other Trusts is carrying out policies on behalf of the government’s hostile environment.

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust was an early operator in preparing to charge for health care. It is one of the highest referrers to debt collection agencies in England of patients who have been charged for their care (Guardian, Chaminda Jayanetti, 23 June 2013)


OUR OPEN LETTER TO STAFF AT LEWISHAM AND GREENWICH TRUST Click to download

‘Since the law changed in 2015 many people are no longer deemed ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK and are charged for all NHS care at 150% of cost price except for emergency care. This has put many lives at risk and caused great hardship for many of our local residents. Since 2017 this policy has been further ramped up by the Government with more and more pressure being put on Trusts to collect money from those deemed as ‘non-resident’.
Read and download the full letter

READ AND DOWNLOAD our leaflet

WHY OUR CAMPAIGN OPPOSES CHARGING MIGRANTS FOR HEALTHCARE

The issue is not about ’tourists’ visiting the UK getting ‘free’ medical care, it is about vulnerable migrants –  frequently people who are resident but have been wrongly assessed – being charged when they have no means to pay, as in the case of the Windrush generation. People are being pursued by debt collectors and reported to the Home Office If they cannot pay.

It is part of the Government’s cruel ‘hostile environment’ and the beginning of the end of the principles of the NHS – including universal access to healthcare, free at the point of need.

We applaud the British Medical Association conference who have called on the Government to drop charging migrants for medical care.