This really isn’t an issue and very rare, thought to cost £110M from the £134,000M budget or 0.08% of the nhs budget.

Also remember when we are abroad in the EU we can get medical treatment to the same level as that countries nationals. 785,000 British people living in Spain, the majority of who are pensioners get healthcare in Spain for free and at no cost to the nhs or British taxpayer.

Actually,"deliberate health tourism" is thought be be around 120m to 280m. This includes British expats who return to the UK to see doctors. Even so, it is tiny in the big scheme of things.

But as we all know its just another exaggeration used to rile up the base.

You're correct it is a tiny percentage. However to me it's more the principle of it. I don't go to work and pay my taxes and NI for any Tom dick and Harry to use it. Emergencies aside of course. If I have to use a doctor on holiday in Greece I have to pay the guy before he'll even see me . I then have to claim it back on my insurance, why don't we adopt the same policy

You don’t, unless you are going to a private healthcare facility, which you would also have to pay for in the UK.
As an EU citizen you can get free medical treatment in Greece with a free EHIC card.

Your EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) gets you free treatment with any healthcare provider with a contract with the Greek National Organisation for Healthcare Services Provision (EOPYY).

You are talking paranoid rubbish. I have been on holiday in Greece when a friend who became ill. We took him to the local hospital; the treatment was excellent & free. I don't think they even asked to see his card.

It's misdirection. The reason the NHS is struggling is because of under-funding not because of hordes of foreign health tourists. Blaming foreigners plays to some people's innate prejudice and allows those really responsible to get off the hook.

You're being had.

And this is why we are where we are - when people base their opinions not on fact or reality or their own experience, but on what a Daily Mail columnist wrote, or what Nigel Farage said on Newsnight.

As has been pointed out to you in very simple detail - you're wrong; as an EU citizen, you can walk into a hospital or GP in any member state, and be treated free of charge. Those bloody Europeans - they're so unreasonable!

NO you can't.

Broken wrist in France, pay up, clIm back through insurance
Medivac in Spain, pay up, claim tnrough insurance

Stop reading The Mirror, Tne Star for your "facts"

Had to use the local doctor in nidri on lefkada last year. I had to pay even though I showed him my EU card. Must have been a private practitioner. So I'm not paranoid .. just used the wrong doctor

Don't know how to post links but Google Nigerian woman has quads on NHS . I suppose half a million quid is peanuts. We are mugs.

It’s always the same. Those with agendas to keep people from realising they’re being mugged off put out stories that are easily swallowed.

Benefits Street – “the poor are to blame”

Bendy Bananas – “the EU are to blame”

Nigerian woman gives birth – “foreigners bleeding the NHS dry it’s their fault I can’t get treatment”.


You’re being had.

Meanwhile those to blame get away with it.

And your agenda. Hating people being right?