NHS must pay for treatment abroad

LUXEMBOURG/LONDON (Reuters) – NHS patients who travel abroad for treatment must be reimbursed if they faced an “undue delay” for treatment in Britain, the European Court ruled on Tuesday.

The verdict may have serious cost implications for the NHS, which has recently announced thousands of job losses due to spiralling deficits.

The case had been brought by a 74-year-old British woman who travelled (Advertisement)
to France to have a 4,000-pound hip operation, despite being told her local NHS practice would not pay for it.
Her fight for compensation went all the way to the European Court of Justice.

The judges said that, under European Union rules on freedom to services, one EU healthcare system must pay the bill if a patient has waited too long and opts to go to another EU country for treatment.

“In order to be entitled to refuse a patient authorisation to receive treatment abroad on the ground of waiting time for hospital treatment in the State of residence, the NHS … must show that that waiting time does not exceed a medically acceptable period, having regard to the patient’s condition and clinical needs,” the judges said in a written ruling.

They said it was now up to British courts to decide whether Yvonne Watts had faced an unacceptable delay.

“I welcome the judgement for what it means for other NHS patients, that’s why I did it,” Watts said in a statement. “If I’m awarded the money back, I’ll give it to a medical charity but I’m not optimistic about being reimbursed.

“The case has been going on for such a long time, I am glad it’s over now.”

She had originally been told by the NHS that she would have to wait a year for her operation, but then had that waiting time reduced to three or four months.

Watts’ daughter Julie Harding said in a statement her mother had been disappointed to have to take the action that she did.

“Mum is of the generation that saw the National Health Service introduced with the promise of care from the cradle to the grave.

“Having paid national insurance all her working life she had expected the NHS to be there for her when she needed it,” she said of the service that was created in 1948.

The Department of Health said it did not expect the verdict to make a big difference to the numbers of people travelling abroad for treatment.

“We need to understand the full implications of the court’s judgement before we make any changes..,” it said in a statement.

“We will incorporate the actions that we need to take … and will issue updated guidance to the NHS shortly.”

A department spokesman said the government “expected to continue with a system that requires any patient who wants to travel abroad for elective hospital treatment paid for by the NHS” to have authorisation first.