London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 14, 2025

NHS fees to be scrapped for overseas health staff and care workers

NHS fees to be scrapped for overseas health staff and care workers

NHS staff and care workers from overseas will no longer have to pay an extra charge towards the health service after mounting pressure from MPs.

Boris Johnson's spokesman said the PM had asked the Home Office and Department for Health to exempt NHS and care workers "as soon as possible".

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was "a victory for common decency".

The health immigration surcharge on non-EU migrants is £400 per year and set to rise to £624 in October.

The move to grant the exemption came after the PM's spokesman defended the fee earlier on Thursday.

Officials are now working on the detail and more will be announced "in the coming days".

But it is understood the plan will include exemptions for all NHS workers, including porters and cleaners, as well as independent health workers and social care workers.

The chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, Dame Donna Kinnair, said the charge had created "an unfair and unjust financial burden", adding: "At last the government has agreed with us.

"This will ease the pressure on families who may be struggling financially or emotionally as a result."

Mr Johnson himself stood by the charge on Wednesday, telling MPs he "understood the difficulties faced by our amazing NHS staff", but said the government "must look at the realities" of funding the NHS.

It caused a backlash, with a number of Tory MPs joining opposition MPs in calling for him to reconsider - including the Tory chairman of the Commons public administration select committee, William Wragg, and his backbench colleague Sir Roger Gale.

Earlier, No 10 defended the levy, saying the money "goes directly back into the NHS to help save lives".

But now Mr Johnson's spokesman has said: "[The PM] has been thinking about this a great deal. He has been a personal beneficiary of carers from abroad and understands the difficulties faced by our amazing NHS staff.

"The purpose of the NHS surcharge is to benefit the NHS, help to care for the sick and save lives. NHS and care workers from abroad who are granted visas are doing this already by the fantastic contribution which they make."

The change was welcomed by Labour, as the party had been planning to seek an amendment to the Immigration Bill to secure the exemption.

Sir Keir tweeted: "Boris Johnson is right to have u-turned and backed our proposal to remove the NHS charge for health professionals and care workers.

"This is a victory for common decency and the right thing to do. We cannot clap our carers one day and then charge them to use our NHS the next."

Mr Wragg also praised the decision, saying the PM had "shown true leadership, listened and reflected".

The leader of the SNP in Westminster, Ian Blackford, said he was "pleased to see the change of heart after pressure", while the acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, called it "a great cross-party win".

The change was also welcomed by of Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.

But the charity's chief executive Satbir Singh added: "It's depressing that it's taken nearly two months for the government to listen."


Estimated costs

The surcharge is currently paid by non-European Economic Area (EEA) nationals coming to the UK for longer than six months.

There are exemptions for victims of slavery or trafficking, children taken into care, and the dependants of armed forces personnel.

The current rate of £400 a year is double what it what it was when first introduced in 2015.

It is due to be extended to EEA citizens moving to the UK from from next January, after the post-Brexit transition period ends.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank has estimated that exempting NHS and social care workers in England would cost around £90m a year.

News of the exemption came as the government announced a trial for a coronavirus test that does not need to be sent to a lab and gives results in 20 minutes.

It has also been announced that 10 million antibody tests - that check if someone has had the virus in the past - will start being rolled out next week.

Meanwhile, lockdown restrictions in Scotland are likely to be relaxed slightly from next Thursday.

And in Northern Ireland, Education Minister Peter Weir has said the reopening of schools will begin for "key cohort years" in August, followed by a phased provision for all pupils in September.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
×