The Green Party believes the Government’s plan to make NHS hospitals in England charge overseas patients upfront for treatment [1] is a distraction from the real source of the NHS crisis.
Jonathan Bartley, Green Party co-leader, said:
“Treating doctors and nurses like border guards and forcing patients to produce identity documents will only cause chaos and simply add more stress to an already struggling system.
“It was also revealed today that nine in 10 hospitals have reached unsafe levels of overcrowding so far this winter [2] and one in six A&Es may be closed or downgraded over the next few years [3]. It’s clear our NHS is in a dire state but the Government seems more interesting in pushing the blame for this crisis onto foreign patients.
“Health tourism is not the real threat to our NHS, underinvestment is. The biggest impact that foreign born people have on our NHS is as doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. It’s time the Government owns up to its own failure rather than attempting to shift the blame elsewhere.”
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