Groups representing doctors, including the Doctors Association UK, the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, and the Association of Pakistani Physicians of Northern Europe, have said that charging overseas medical staff higher fees to use the NHS is a “gross insult” to professionals who are risking their lives to fight Covid-19. The groups have asked the government to reconsider plans to make foreign medical workers pay a £624 health surcharge as part of a post-Brexit immigration system. Scrapping it they say would be the “smallest recognition” of their role in the pandemic.
However, the government plans to go ahead with the plans to increase the fee levied on overseas workers to cover the cost of their healthcare, which is due to be extended to those from the EU.
Full story in The Times, 19 May 2020