UKIP Wales Health Spokesman Caroline Jones, today highlighted the extraordinary level of European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) fraud in the NHS.
According to The Sun, It is believed that millions of fraudsters have taken advantage of the British taxpayer in order to claim free healthcare across Europe, as EU hospitals then claim the cost back from the UK government.
The exposé revealed just how easy it is to take advantage of the NHS. An investigative journalist successfully ordered 13 European Health Insurance cards using fake names and birth dates and made-up national insurance numbers.
Over the past decade, the NHS has issued around 57 million new EHIC cards and paid out over £1billion to cover the healthcare costs of British people working or on holiday abroad. However, it is believed that around £200 million of this is fraudulent. According to a whistle-blower at the NHS Business Services Authority, one in five applications are fraudulent, he also claimed that the “fraud being accepted by management”.
Caroline Jones asked Cabinet Secretary for Health, Vaughan Gething, what the Welsh Government is doing to eliminate fraud in the NHS. The Cabinet Secretary could not provide any examples:
“It’s not covered in the report, it’s not been a significant area of interest, but, of course, I would not want the service to be taken advantage of.”
Caroline Jones commented:
“Clearly the Welsh Government is not taking these shocking revelations seriously. Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being wasted supporting fraudulent claims. It is an inconvenient truth for the Remainer establishment in Cardiff Bay that these claims come from European Union nationals. The sooner we are out of the EU, the better.”
