Cross-border health scheme could face closure due to Brexit

Mary Glavin getting checked before her cataract treatment at Belfast's Kingsbridge Private Hospital on Sunday, December 22, 2019. File picture: Neil Michael

The cross-border health scheme that refunds the cost of operations carried out in the North could face closure if the EU and UK fail to reach an agreement under Brexit.

The EU's Cross-Border Directive (CBD) scheme on healthcare has been used by thousands of people to get treated quickly over the border instead of being delayed on HSE waiting lists.

More than 5,120 patients were treated under the scheme in Belfast’s Kingsbridge Private Hospital over 2019 and 2020.

People travelled for a variety of urological, gynecological, spinal, and ophthalmological procedures.

At least 2,500 people have travelled there on the so-called Cataracts Express, which Independent TDs Danny Healy-Rae and Michael Collins — who have both raised the issue in the Dáil in the past two days — set up in 2018.

The 61st busload of people is due to leave for Belfast from Cork on Saturday, and two more trips are being organised.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said the future of the scheme is still under review.

They said: “The UK’s withdrawal from the EU has implications for healthcare arrangements that currently operate under the EU legislative framework, including those arrangements covered by the CBD.

“The Department of Health has been working intensively to ensure reciprocal healthcare arrangements will apply post-Brexit. In this context, the particular legal and policy questions associated with the CBD are being examined.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health in the North said the scheme will continue to apply until the end of the Brexit implementation period.

According to Britain's Department for Exiting the European Union’s Implementation Period document, the “implementation period” ends on December 31.

A spokesperson told the Irish Examiner: “At the end of the implementation period, the [CBD] will no longer apply to the UK unless the UK comes to an agreement with the EU on this matter. However, transitional arrangements for patients from Northern Ireland whose treatment had been applied for, authorised or commenced, on or before the end of the implementation period have been provided for.

"They will be able to complete their treatment and seek reimbursement in the event of no UK/EU agreement being reached on the CBD.”

At present users of the scheme here collect receipts for the cost of the procedure, which they pay upfront for, and then claim the money back from the HSE.

In 2015, the first full year of operation of the CBD scheme, 150 reimbursements were made by the HSE at a cost of €585,863.

Last year’s reimbursements were €11.3m to the beginning of November for a total of 4,365 reimbursements.