§ Baroness HORNSBY-SMITHasked Her Majesty's Government:
What proportion of tourists and non-resident citizens accepted for special treatment under the National Health Service under reciprocal agreement are treated at hospitals in the London area.
§ Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNEThe reciprocal agreements with Malta, Gibraltar and Channel Islands arc the only ones to provide for a quota of patients to be sent specially for treatment to balance the fact that United Kingdom visitors to those islands greatly exceed their visitors here. Exceptionally, patients may be sent specially for treatment to each other's country under the reciprocal agreement with USSR. The EEC arrangements also provide for patients to be sent specially for treatment in other EEC countries. In 1978 63 per cent. of patients so received from non-EEC countries and 55 per cent. of patients from EEC countries were treated at hospitals in the London area.