UK Immigration measures to deal with NHS treatment to long-term migrants.

A legislation came to effect on 6th April 2015 with a NHS health surcharge affecting long term migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) coming into the UK or making in-country applications to extend their status. Long term status is an application by a migrant with a duration of above 6 months. Current rate at August 2020 stands at £1000 for in-country applications and £1200 for entry clearance.

The Health surcharge will therefore be extended to overseas students, non-EEA family applications and workers under the points based system. This new measure is a way to subsidise the NHS treatment for the migrants in the above categories who previously benefited from free NHS treatment.

The surcharges are paid by a migrants by way of substantial upfront payments when they lodge their applications to the Home Office. This surcharge will reflect and calculated for the time period of the migrant’s stay in the UK. The Home Office has introduced a calculator to assess the amounts of contributions to different categories of immigration applications. The funds collected from immigration applications will be transferred to the NHS by the Home Office.

The surcharges are on a competitive level against medical health insurance. Having paid the surcharge, migrants will have the same access to the NHS as a UK permanent resident while their stay in the UK is lawful.

In setting the surcharge levels, the Home Office states that, the government has considered the wide range of free health services available to migrants alongside the valuable contribution they make and the need to ensure the UK remains attractive to the brightest and the best from around the world.

This new rule will not apply to the non-EEA members visiting the UK as tourists. However previously the visitors were not eligible for free NHS thus it will continue to charge the visitors if they require medical services.