dmu

Thank you! I can't offer more advice, except maybe offer to help translate the pertinents parts of the Améli site if necessary....

EuroTrash

I think it's all been said. EU rules have been carefully thought out and they're intended to be fair to on the one hand each EU state so that their services are not abused, and on the other hand to individuals by giving them clear routes to access healthcare. There are responsibilities on both sides and for the rules to work, individuals also have to meet their responsibilities. Droits et devoirs, yet again.

As Pulaski says the only option for the OP seems to be to move back to the UK, and it will have to be a genuine and permanent move. I don't see that France has any obligation to them at present, because living here with no health cover in place, they're even not meeting the criteria for legal residence. So before they can be sure of applying successfully for Puma they would have to take out private health insurance and wait for 3 months before applying (I suspect this insurance wouldn't cover the current medical condition - though if it did, it could be well worth taking this route). Then they might have to wait for the decision and after that there would be hoops to jump through if they want to go to the UK for treatment; it's all going to take too long. As far as clocking up 5 years' legal residence they haven't even started because the time they've been here without healthcare won't count. If they have low income and no savings they should be immediately eligible for AME, the safety net provided by France for immigrants living here in an irregular situation, but if they own their own home and have savings I doubt they'd qualify.

As to how you prove you've moved back to the UK, well it's always hard to prove what your intentions are but in the end the facts prove things in retrospect. So the OP may have to pay upfront, but if he does he can keep fighting and eventually get it back.

I don't suppose it's much consolation but if the OP had done things by the book applied and been accepted into CPAM to pay contributions, or taken out private healthcare, he would have paid out several thousand € in cotisations over the years, so he's saved quite a lot and can spend that much on healthcare before he's out of pocket overall.

MikeJ

It is only necessary to be 'resident' in the UK to receive NHS care - there is no longer a qualifying period nor (apparently) the need to show that your residence is intended to be long term or permanent. So return to the UK, rent or stay with relatives and then get a referral from a GP. You could probably even turn up at A&E but may be an issue if you have a pre-existing condition. Once treatment is complete, hopefully successfully, you can return to France.
BTW the CofE for liver surgery in London is the Royal Free Hospital.

EuroTrash

Is this recent information? I know there's been several U-turns over the last year or so, but I thought the latest situation was that you had to actually convince them that you've moved back to be eligible for NHS cover again.

It does look as if the current requirement is for "settled" residence, though the UK has invented so many different types of residence - ordinary, habitual etc - and what they all mean is as clear as mud. However, in this document it says this

"5. A British citizen who has
been living abroad, or who is migrating to the UK for the first time, can therefore pass the
ordinary residence test upon taking up settled residence here. British Citizens who are no
longer living and settled in the UK cannot be said to be Ordinarily Resident in the UK."
https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...esident-uk.pdf

I would have thought you would at least need to be renting your own place to claim that you're settled, but who knows. Hopefully nobody understands what settled residence means so it won't be enforced in any case. Although, clearly just being in the UK isn't sufficient as the OP has already been refused NHS care, and it might be significant that the link above is to a document that says it was prepared by Visitor & Migrant NHS Cost Recovery Programme.

With a bit of luck there's so much confusion that if the OP stands his ground they'll have to agree because they're not sure enough of their position to disagree.

cyrian

In a recent post Novo re-registered by going to his G.P. with his current details i.e. address and the surgery registered him online into the system.
At the hospital, they ask for the details of your G.P. and not proof of residency.

dmu

The OP hasn't responded since his Thread was transferred from The Welcome Inn. Hope he's meanwhile found a satisfactory solution.....
.... and in fact there's no mention of the Thread having been transferred, so maybe he thinks it's simply disappeared?

petitefrancaise

Since you appear to have the option of going to the UK for treatment then go and register with a local GP practice and get your wife treated asap. Tell them - correctly - that you have returned to the UK to live if anyone asks. I suspect they won't.

How do you know she has liver disease? Is that what they told you in the UK?

In my experience (lots) most French hospital doctors will understand english and speak some of it although you may need to ask them to do it. Do you have a french GP? What is their advice?

Cynic

Just asked my wife (NHS Practice Nurse) what they do; they register all non-UK patients them as temporary patients and then they get treatment; the registration lasts until they have been treated for whatever's wrong, sounds like the OP would be in the same position. Nothing has changed in the recent past, nobody is turned away unless they had been previously "removed".

cyrian

The OP did the same in 2012 in a thread about registering vehicles.

Pulaski

It isn't a question of whether they'll be treated, it's a question of whether they'll get billed for the treatment!
I anticipate him coming back in mid 2019, asking another question, and posting a total of three additional times.

Chatter Static

Go back to the UK and register with a GP and seek medical care, I know our local Urgencies "A&E ER" has a big sign up in English stating if you don't have a Carte Vitale and only hold a Ehic "what used to be the E121" then before any treatment can be administered a form of cash payment will have to be provided for medical care. The French are clamping down on inactif ehic holders.

Cynic

Nope - with regard to registration, they are asked their name and address, there is no check made of the address; they would get registered as a temporary patient at that address. No bill is raised from the GP surgery for any NHS supplied services. For any walk-in; if a patient turned up, they'd get treated, if the treatment required medication, they'd pay for the prescription just like any other NHS patient; if that treatment meant referral to the Hospital, then that would be it until discharge, where if they were still resident, the "community" would pick up their care once more; whether the Hospital would be charging anything, she doesn't know. If the patient was from a foreign address and had an EHIC card, records of any treatment would be sent to the home GP.

There was talk some years ago about charging foreign patients, but nothing happened about it. Foreign walk-ins are not a frequent occurrence, they have more problems with Pikeys who don't seem to come from anywhere.

Chatter Static

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/he...e-from-abroad/





Bottom of the pages of this links states

Pulaski

No company, in any line of business expects it's front line staff to issue bills and collect debts. I am not saying that it is happening, but IF non-residents are being billed and persued it will be by an NHS central administrative function, not a doctor or nurse, or even the GP's admin staff.

There are also degrees of expense and someone coming to a GP with a rash or a sprained shoulder has a cost implication that arguably isn't worth billing or chasing, but the cost implications of treatment for liver failure could be a thousand times greater, and so rather worth chasing.

Cynic

Then if so, as far as the CCG my wife works for is concerned, that process must be conducted by the Hospital via the Acute healthcare system; all information is passed to the Hospital who treat the patient. There is no process in Community Healthcare to do this. I'd like to know the answer though; I have a meeting at NHS England on Tuesday, I shall ask.