It's disgraceful that overseas NHS workers could still be forced to pay for healthcare

Ahead of the Tories’ latest attempt to open up our health service to big money, we know that hundreds of thousands of people in our country are already forced to pay to use the NHS.

- SARAH OWEN

Hundreds of thousands of NHS and care staff who come from overseas and who’ve fought on the frontline of this pandemic have had to pay £624 per year to access care from the NHS that they themselves work in.

Boris Johnson knows this. In May last year, amid that very first lockdown, the prime minister made a promise. It was front-page news. He said – after much cajoling from the public, Labour, trade unions and his own MPs – that NHS and care workers from abroad, who we applauded on our doorsteps, would no longer be insulted by being expected to pay to use the health service. So then, why is it, that more than a year after the policy came into force, his ministers don’t know how many NHS and care staff have been refunded the NHS fees they paid?