§ Mr. Teddy TaylorTo ask the Prime Minister if she will raise at the next meeting of the European Council the European Economic Community rules which require the United Kingdom to offer free medical treatment to residents of certain French overseas territories but not to residents of certain United Kingdom overseas dependencies; and if she will make a statement.
§ The Prime MinisterNo. All the United Kingdom dependent territories which so wish have bilateral reciprocal health agreements with the United Kingdom. These provide that immediately necessary treatment is
Review body reports Pay bill increase Range of increase United Kingdom public expenditure cost Per cent. Per cent. £ million1 Armed Forces 6.8 5–8 272 Doctors and dentists 8.8 8–14.1 312 Professions allied to medicine 7.7 7.6–7.8 43 Nurses, midwives and health visitors 6.8 26.7–6.9 420 Top salaries 6.5 34.9–10.6 6 1 The figures for public expenditure cost differ from those in the review bodies' reports. Their figures do not include some costs which count as public expenditure. The figure for doctors and dentists includes payments for GPs' expenses, not counted as pay. The figure for nurses includes £5 million for the flexible pay experiment and an estimated £3 million for a new grading structure for educational grades, which the review body has not yet costed. 2 Three chief area nurses grade 4 in Scotland will get increases of 10–13.6 per cent. 3 This figure does not allow for the recommendation to increase from 25 per cent. to 35 per cent. the quota of civil servants in grades 2 and 3 eligible for discretionary increments. The figure for the pay bill increase does however allow for this. The figure given for the range of increases also excludes restructuring for 13 immigration adjudicators who receive increases of 27.1 per cent.; and for the chief immigration adjudicator and the vice-presidents of the immigration appeal tribunal, who get 28.3 per cent. The Government have decided to accept in full the review bodies' recommendations on armed forces, on professions allied to medicine, and on nurses, midwives and health visitors.
The Government have also decided to accept the recommendation of the review body on doctors and dentists for a basic increase of 8 per cent, for all the groups covered. In the Government's view the creation of 100 additional permanent consultant posts over the next three years, as proposed in the White Paper, "Working for
298Wavailable under the NHS for conditions which arise during a temporary visit, on the same basis as to United Kingdom residents. Some of these agreements already also provide that some patients may be referred for treatment of pre-existing conditions free of charge under the NHS. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health will be discussing with some West Indian and Atlantic dependent territories with whom we have reciprocal agreements—Montserrat, Anguilla, Turks and Caicos Islands, British Virgin Islands and St. Helena and its dependencies—the inclusion in their agreements of a similar facility to refer a limited number of patients for pre-existing conditions free of charge.
The French overseas departments, as an integral part of France, are covered by the EC social security regulations. These allow for the provision of immediately necessary treatment on the same basis as residents of the host country. They also allow referral of patients specifically for treatment but the sending country must meet the full cost of the treatment in such cases.