Visa surcharge for doctors and nurses coming to work in UK 'under review'
UK Home Secretary Priti Patel said on Saturday that a visa surcharge for doctors and nurses coming to work in the UK was under review.
She said she had bowed to pressure to look again at the fees, in light of the “extraordinary contribution” made by medical staff from overseas during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, The Independent reported.
About one in every seven National Health Service (NHS) workers is foreign-born - a dependence that has attracted growing attention as they have been on the frontline of the fight against the coronavirus.
According to ITV, about 153,000 non-EU residents have to pay the £400 ($495) annual charge to use the health service, a cost that will rise to £624 in October.
Middle East Eye reported earlier this week that the surcharge applies to all overseas residents studying and working in the UK, including NHS staff and their entire families. This means that a family of four will have to pay £2,496 a year to access the NHS, in addition to paying existing taxes and national insurance.
The health surcharge was hugely controversial even before the current crisis. There is no right to deferral, or the ability to pay annually. It has to be paid in advance for the entire duration of an applicant’s visa or residency permit.
The total cost may exceed a crippling £8,000 for a family of four on a five-year work permit.
Meanwhile, nurses and junior doctors in training have starting salaries of between £18,000 and £23,000.
More than 100 NHS staff have died fighting the coronavirus pandemic, many of whom have been from migrant and ethnic minority backgrounds. The first eight UK doctors to have died from the virus were all immigrants to the country, the New York Times reported.
Asked if it was the right time to end the surcharge, Patel told ITV: “We have a range of measures that are, like most things in government, under review, and we are looking at everything including visa surcharge.
“We are looking at everything now in terms of what we can do to continue to support everyone on the frontline of the NHS.
“We are speaking about the health-care professionals, the medics, the doctors and nurses and allied health-care professionals who have come to the UK.”
UK death toll
The possible cut or removal of the surcharge was revealed as Patel played down hopes of an early easing of the lockdown, as the death toll in UK hospitals passed 20,000.
UK health department figures on Saturday showed a further 813 people had died in hospital after contracting Covid-19, pushing the official number of fatalities to 20,319.
The medical director of NHS England, Stephen Powis, and the UK's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, had earlier said that keeping the number of fatalities lower than 20,000 would be "a good outcome".
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