Legal Update: Fees will damage health of migrants

Over the summer, the Department of Health and the Home Office ran parallel consultations on access to healthcare for migrants, setting out proposals for charging for primary and secondary healthcare for all migrants except those "permanent residents" who have indefinite leave to remain.

A number of organisations, including Coram Children's Legal Centre, have raised concerns about the impact these proposed changes would have on migrant children, especially those undocumented migrants with "irregular" immigration status. Undocumented migrants, who have no recourse to public funds, are most vulnerable to ill health, are the least likely to have any health insurance and are the least likely to be able to pay for their own care. This group includes those who have made an asylum claim that was ultimately refused; children who were brought to the UK as babies or children, who may have originally had a visa that expired and who have had no control over their situation; some victims of trafficking; and children born to undocumented migrant parents. A May 2012 University of Oxford report put the number of undocumented migrant children in the UK at 120,000, with over half born in the UK. Many undocumented migrants will have been living in the UK for many years, and may well be on a route to settlement and will settle in the UK, but do not currently have indefinite leave to remain.