Of course, it isn't credible.

Assuming that Middlemore isn't lying or mistaken, it sounds as if a single data point for one specific location is being misused to make a broader point about the entire healthcare system.

But anecdotes are not data. It's odd how so many people have difficulty figuring that out.

I would think that watching Doc Martin tells you everything that you need to know about the patient population. (Apparently, they are quirky people who have very odd maladies and who get sick at the drop of a hat.)

What is wrong with an anecdote?

As was stated the data is not kept.

That isn't what Middlemore was saying at all. S/he was making a claim that 90% of ALL NHS patients are foreign born.

Had s/he said "in the A&E room in the hospital where I was working it seemed to me that 90% of our patients were foreign born" that might possibly have been correct.

This is an example of how people extrapolate from one story or one experience and keep repeating it until others believe it.

Anecdotes are fine as long as they are represented as such.

If the claim is that data is not kept, then you cannot cite "data" (the 90% of all NHS users things) to support your claim.

And it's well known that the Cornish are foreign.

That is not how I read it. Seemed pretty clear to me.

Worse than that, s/he then extrapolated from this 90% extrapolation that these dastardly foreign-born patients are the cause of the NHS's woes.

Yet again the information was backed up by comments as to why, the reference to interpreters etc.

The all users was something you added.

It is certainly a factor, exactly how major we will never know. There is a reason for that of course.

Hey, it costs a lot of money to take care of 500 million people!

And even worse than that, this sort of baseless made-up argument provides the perfect red herring to prevent actually getting the NHS to be properly funded. The whole "if only we could get rid of the foreigners" thing is simply nonsense, but "anecdotes" make the populace believe that that is the point on which we should all be focussing.

Is there a reason why "foreign born" citizen and legal resident usage of the NHS should be an issue?

Aided and abetted by the Daily Fail.

NHS among developed world's most efficient health systems, says study = Report in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine finds health service second only to Ireland for cost-effectiveness

So a couple of years old....has it really changed that much in a little over a year?