What is an Overseas Visitor?
An Overseas Visitor is a person not normally resident in the United Kingdom.
The National Health Service provides healthcare for people who live in the UK. People who do not normally live in this country are not automatically entitled to use the NHS free of charge. This is regardless of their nationality, whether they hold a British passport, or have lived in and paid National Insurance contributions and taxes to this country in the past.
Welsh Assembly Government Regulations
The Regulations place a legal obligation on the UHB to establish if patients are not normally resident in the UK. If they are not, then the patient may be charged for the NHS services provided, subject to a list of exemptions.
NHS Charged Patients
Patients charged under the Regulations are treated as NHS Charged Patients, and not private patients. Unlike private patients, NHS Charged Patients are liable to pay for their treatment even where an undertaking to pay has not been obtained.
The treatment of NHS Charged Patients is subject to the same clinical priority as other NHS patients.
Payment
If you are liable to pay for your treatment, Cardiff and Vale UHB accepts the following forms of payment:
• Cash
• Cheque
• Credit/Debit Card
Payment can be made at the Cashiers' Department, located in the main concourse of the University Hospital of Wales at Heath Park. The cashier will provide a receipt for the amount paid.
Emergency Treatment
Some services provided in NHS hospitals are free to everyone, regardless of where they are resident. This currently includes treatment given in an Accident & Emergency Department (A&E), or Casualty Department.
Once the patient is admitted to a ward, or given an outpatient appointment, treatment ceases to be free, and from this point on a charge will be made.
For example, where emergency treatment is given elsewhere in the hospital, for instance, in an Intensive Care Unit, the treatment is chargeable - it is the location that is exempt, not the type of treatment provided.
Overseas Visitors Exemptions
If the patient is not normally resident in the UK, the Overseas Visitor Team will need to make enquiries into the circumstances of the patient, to determine if they meet one of the categories of exemption, or are liable to pay for their treatment.
It is the patient's responsibility to provide evidence supporting the claim to free treatment, otherwise charges may be made.
