A crusading UK politician is calling for the UK to rethink its plans to scrap its reciprocal health agreement with the Isle of Man, but says he is “bewildered” by the Isle of Man government’s “breathtaking silence” on the matter.
Thurrock Labour MP Andrew MacKinlay said he thinks the ending of the reciprocal health agreements the UK had with the Channel Islands last April also might have been prevented if there had been more of an outcry from Jersey and Guernsey.
MacKinlay has been raising the matter in a series of questions in the House of Commons that began in late November. In an interview, he said he intends to continue asking questions on the subject.
Chief executive of the Isle of Man’s Department of Health David Killip was travelling and could not be reached for comment. However, a spokesman for the Isle of Man noted that it had been made “abundantly clear to us that [the UK’s decision to end the reciprocal health agreement] is a policy decision that is not open to negotiation,” and that therefore, “we have to be realistic and responsible and prepare the public for the agreement to terminate at the end of March next year.”
On Guernsey, meanwhile, principal external affairs officer for the States of Guernsey policy council Jo Reeve said the island’s government was not hugely aggrieved that the reciprocal health agreement had been ended. This is because even before, “our advice had always been that people travelling here from the UK, as well as to Guernsey residents travelling to the UK, should take out travel insurance, because the agreement didn’t cover everything.”
Reeve noted that as it stands now, all accident and emergency attendances and visits to NHS walk-in treatment centres in the UK continue to be free of charge to Guernsey residents, and that students in the UK will also continue to benefit from free access to all parts of the NHS.
Jersey appeared somewhat more interested in taking advantage of MacKinlay’s interest in the issue. In a statement, Jersey health minister deputy Anne Pryke noted that having taken over the position in April, after the reciprocal health agreement had ended, she "will certainly be working to reinstate [it]".
"I have been in touch with Mr MacKinlay to see if he can help us reopen the debate next year," she added.
"I know we may have to compromise, and any new agreement we reach is unlikely to replicate our previous one, but we have deals with 13 other countries and we would like to have one with the UK.
"It would mean a lot to the many islanders who travel to the UK regularly, and to all the visitors who come here on holiday or to visit friends and family."
‘No assessments of effects’
Yesterday, MacKinlay’s question for the House was whether any assessments had been made “of the effects on educational institutions and businesses in the Isle of Man” of the decision to end the health agreement.
Minister of State Michael Wills replied that “no such assessments took place”, and explained that the Department of Health decided to end the agreements with all the Crown Dependencies because it regarded them as "out of place considering the wide availability of travel insurance”, and because there was "little robust data to justify the business case and value for money for the NHS”.
This and other of MacKinlay’s questions and the responses to them may be found at www.theyworkforyou.com .
23 UK reciprocal agreements
In a response to one of MacKinlay’s earlier questions, Health minister Gillian Merron said that in addition to the Isle of Man, which is scheduled to lose its agreement in April, the list currently comprises Australia, Barbados, the British Virgin Islands, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, New Zealand, Russia, St. Helena, Turks and Caicos Islands, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Serbia Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia.
Interest in overseas dependencies
MacKinlay, who is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said his interest in the health agreements stemmed from his personal, “obscure interest” in the UK’s overseas dependencies and their constitutional relationship with Britain.
He said he had been unaware that the reciprocal health agreements with the Channel Islands had been ended until he found himself sitting next to Isle of Man speaker Stephen Rodan at a meeting in the autumn.
MacKinlay said the matter was important not only for people on the Isle of Man but for people in the UK, some of whom “can’t get travel insurance” for health reasons.
“I’m just bewildered as to why they haven’t written to the House of Commons about it,” he said of the Crown Dependencies and their pending loss of their reciprocal health agreements, adding that to his knowledge, no one had ever sought to meet with members of Parliament about the matter either.
“In my judgement that’s just ridiculous, they could have altered or tempered or reversed this decision, and even now at the eleventh hour [could do so].
“But I’ve been going on about this now [in the House of Parliament] for a couple of weeks, and I still haven’t had one communication from the Isle of Man government.”
MacKinlay described his interest in the reciprocal health agreements as “a friendly initiative”, but said there was a limit to how much more he would do, or be able to do, without more feedback and support from the relevant Crown Dependency governments.
As reported previously in International Adviser, the reciprocal health agreements with the offshore islands were less imbalanced than they are now in previous decades, when larger numbers of UK residents used to spend their holidays in Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.
The ending of the Channel Islands’ reciprocal health agreement with the UK on 1 April affected residents of Alderney, Sark and Herm in addition to Guernsey and Jersey, as well as UK visitors travelling to these places. It has given some banks and insurance companies based in the islands a new market to cater for.
