NEARLY £80,000 was spent by NHS Devon providing health care to asylum seekers last year, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed.
The FOI request sought the information from NHS Devon Integrated Care Board about the ‘amount of money spent providing asylum seekers with health care in the past 12 months.’
The response showed that a total of £79,056 was spent by NHS Devon in 2023/24.
The spending is in relation to the Local Enhanced Services (LESs) in place between NHS Devon and its GP practises.
NHS Devon has a ‘Refugee and People Seeking Asylum’ LESs, which covers a period from January 2023 to March 2026, with a review scheduled for October 2025.
The NHS Devon Integrated Care Board Service Specification document relating to the above-mentioned LES states that ‘GPs accepting scheme participants will receive a one-off payment of £150 per person, in addition to usual contractual funding’
It says that the service aims to provide refugees and asylum seekers with ‘fair and equal access to primary medical services’.
The document goes on to say that the LESs is aimed at ‘all patients resettling as refugees and asylum seekers who reside within a bridging or contingency hotel or are accommodated as part of a government scheme with families or hosts, located within a practice’s boundary.’
Enhanced services are defined as ‘primary medical services other than essential services, additional services or out-of-hours services’ by the British Medical Association.
There are both directed and local enhanced services in England, the former agreed at a national level and have to be offered to all GP practices and the latter developed by local commissioners to be offered to local practices to supplement existing services.