So the Immigration Health Surcharge #IHS is going up again, from £400 to £620. It doubled in cost only a little over a year ago. So what is this charge, what is it for and why has it become so damn expensive?
The health surcharge is payable for most applications where a non-EU national (for now!) is seeking leave to remain in the UK for more than 6 months. They are asked to pay a fee to the #NHS to ensure they are covered for medical care whilst in the UK.
These fees are paid in addition to Home Office application fees which have skyrocketed over the past decade. They're also paid for the duration of the leave being applied for. So currently if you're a spouse extending your leave that's £1,033 to the Home Office and £1,000 NHS.
Say that you're a family of three and you're applying for everyone, that could be a whopping £6,099 in fees every 30 months! And if that goes up further, it could be a real issue at a time the UK needs to attract more skilled workers. So, are these fees justified?
Well... probably not. The BMA estimates actual health tourism (people seeking medical care who aren't entitled to it) costs the NHS £100-£300m a year. That's 0.3% of the health budget. The NHS has a funding gap of £30bn. This then starts to look a little like scapegoating.
The rate this has gone up at is also explosive! The IHS has gone from not existing in 2015 to tripling its cost in 5 years! It does make you question what the initial fee was based on if it was apparently this far out!
There's also the fact that EU nationals have not previously had to pay this. From Jan 2021 onward, a lot more people are going to have to pay a lot more in!
So, it's quite new, quite expensive, based on questionable figures and doesn't fix any of the major issues with NHS funding but it makes it look like the Government are trying to. Got it? Lovely.
