Legislation in the United Kingdom (national health system)
Asylum seekers are entitled to access health care on equal grounds as British nationals in regards to coverage and conditions. This is also the rule for unaccompanied children.
Undocumented migrants (adult and accompanied children) can only access free of charge primary care, emergency care, family planning, treatment of communicable diseases (except HIV) and in serious mental health cases. Since 2004, they have had to pay the full cost of any other hospital treatment or diagnosis including secondary care, inpatient care, ante/post natal care provided in hospitals, medicines and HIV treatment. Furthermore, they can be denied access to these services if they cannot advance payment as long as the treatment can wait until the patient returns to his/her country of origin.
An important obstacle for undocumented migrants arises from the fact that general practitioners in the United Kingdom have the discretionary power to include or not include patients in their NHS list and this is the gate to access the meager entitlements that the undocumented migrants have.
Download the report on the UK legislation on the access to health care for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers.
Download the Comparative overview of the legislation on access to health care for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers in 16 countries.
UK News on health care
"It has come to light that people removed to countries where yellow fever vaccination is mandatory for entry are not given the vaccine. How does the Home Office get round this requirement? (...) Last month, the charity Medical Justice summarised its findings on mistreatment of children in detention centres in its report 'State Sponsored Cruelty': Children in immigration detention. Among 50 children facing removal, there was inadequate immunisation or administration of incorrect prophylactic drugs. Any country that purports to uphold human rights and look after its vulnerable people has a duty to ensure that required prevention and treatment is given to all. Cutting corners in the treatment of asylum seekers and their children is simply disgraceful."
Sources:
- The Lancet, Vol. 376, Issue 9751, Page 1438, 30 October 2010
- Medical Justice, Download the report
The UK Border Agency has announced today the suspension of the return of asylum seekers to Greece under the Dublin Regulation. With immediate effect, the backlog of approximately 1300 cases and all new cases will have their applications heard in the UK, and not Greece. This will come as a great relief to all those facing return to the "broken asylum system" of Greece. The decision-making process in the UK leaves a lot to be desired but at least we have legal aid (for now, and only just) and the initial success rate is more than Greece's 1%.
Medical Justice, which sends doctors to the centres, said more than half of the children in the 141 cases it had looked at since April 2004 suffered psychological harm, with symptoms including bed wetting, loss of bowel control, heightened anxiety and food refusal.
Source:
Doctors of the World UK will run a nurse-led weekly clinic at Notre Dame Refugee Centre (NDRC) on Leicester Square. This clinic will be an extension of its Project: London outreach activities, which provide advice, support and interim healthcare to vulnerable people who are unable to access healthcare. It will specialise in work with Francophone patients but will be open to all refugees and asylum seekers.
Sources:
Britain's new Immigration Minister announced that children would no longer be detained. The United Kingdom has often been criticised for keeping more than 1,000 children a year in detention centres. 'Refugee and Migrant Justice' applauds the new government for "recognising the inhumanity of this practice which treats children like criminals when they have done no crime and can leave scars for life. We hope that this will be implemented immediately and that whatever measures are brought in to replace detention will put the welfare and safety of these children first."
Sources:
- Refugee and Migrant Justice, 'Government pledge to end detention of children welcomed by Refugee and Migrant Justice'
- ECRE Weekly Bulletin, 21 may 2010
Detaining children in an immigration detention centre is "extremely distressing and harmful", according to a highly critical report on the conditions in the Yarl's Wood Immigration centre published by the Children's Commissioner for England. The report highlights a number of problems in the Yarl's Wood centre where more than 1,000 children are held every year. These include a failure to assess "even at an elementary level" the general psychological wellbeing of a child on arrival and a failure to recognise psychological harm when faced with dramatic changes in a child's behaviour. The UK Border Agency dismissed the report as "misguided and wrong" and insisted that they take the detention of families "very seriously" and use it only as a last resort. In response to the findings, Donna Covey, Chief Executive of the UK Refugee Council, said that: "These are children we are talking about. It is unacceptable that they are detained at all. Even if all the Commissioner's recommendations about procedure were followed to the letter, there is no escaping the harm that is caused by locking children up."
Source: ECRE Weekly Bulletin, 19 February 2010
Conditions at a privately run immigration removal centre have deteriorated so much that they are now "wholly unacceptable" for women and children, the chief inspector of prisons says today. The results of the unannounced inspection in October published on 18 December show that the centre has developed a "more prison-like culture" in the past 18 months and previous fears about the plight of a small number of children and women at this largely male establishment have grown.
Source: The Guardian, 18 December.
From 15 July, failed asylum seekers will be entitled to the same health services as someone ordinarily resident in the UK.
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