OVERSEAS visitors treated at Salisbury District Hospital are costing the trust tens of thousands of pounds as it struggles to recoup the money it is owed.

Finance boss Malcolm Cassells said while the hospital did not have large numbers of foreign visitors, it was not able to collect as much of the amount it was due as it would like.

Speaking at a Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust board meeting yesterday, he said: “It is quite difficult to collect money in retrospect.

“Insurance details sometimes don’t cover the services that have been provided or don’t fully cover them, and to try and do debt recovery in other countries, particularly in areas of Africa, can be very difficult indeed.

“Supposing that we’re due £100,000, we may end up not being able to collect 30 to 40 per cent of that.

“It’s not hundreds of thousands, it’s relatively small here but I have to say the system is open to abuse – if anybody knows the answers they need to give to the questions being raised then there are answers that can be given that would not class them as an overseas visitor and that’s under national policy.”

Mr Cassells was responding to a question asked by hospital governor Lynn Taylor over the efficiency of the hospital on collecting payment from visitors from abroad.

Mr Cassells said: “The process we have to go through is laid down nationally in terms of identification of the overseas visitors – those processes take place on the wards in the main and it’s a part of admission processes.

“If we know about patients coming in earlier and they’ve gone through that process then we would be warned in advance of overseas visitors coming in.

“We don’t have huge numbers here – we have audited this to see whether we are carrying out those processes effectively and whether we are then getting reimbursed appropriately.”

Recently MPs on the public accounts committee said the system for recovering costs from foreign visitors was “chaotic”.

From April, hospitals will be required by law to check whether patients are eligible for free care on the NHS as part of a government clampdown on the cost of overseas visitors using the service.

NHS Improvement, which oversees hospital trusts, said hospitals would no longer have to chase money they are owed.

The government aims to recover £500m a year.