ArticleHealth care analysis : HCA : journal of health philosophy and policy2019
Austerity or Xenophobia? The Causes and Costs of the "Hostile Environment" in the NHS.
Article in Health care analysis : HCA : journal of health philosophy and policy, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Primary care receptionists influence migrant access to healthcare by acting as street-level bureaucrats: a scoping review.BMC primary care · 2026Article
- Parental migration, socioeconomic deprivation and hospital admissions in preschool children in England: national birth cohort study, 2008 to 2014.BMC medicine · 2024Article
- Doing 'our bit': Solidarity, inequality, and COVID-19 crowdfunding for the UK National Health Service.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2022Article
- A decade of the hostile environment and its impact on health.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2022Article
- The prehospital care experiences and perceptions of ambulance staff and Eastern European patients: An interview study in Lincolnshire, UK.Journal of migration and health · 2022Article
- Engaging the vulnerable: A rapid review of public health communication aimed at migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.Journal of migration and health · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
During the "age of austerity" the UK government has progressively limited free health services for "overseas visitors" on the grounds of fairness and frugality. This is despite the fact that the cost of the additional bureaucracy required by the new system and the public health consequences are expected to exceed the sums saved. In this article I explore the interaction between the discourses of austerity and xenophobia as they relate to migrants' access to healthcare. By examining the available data and adjudicating various moral arguments, I cast doubt on the claim that the current charging regulations are cost-effective and fair. I instead contend that if the UK is concerned with running a health service that is economically-sustainable and morally-defensible, it is critical that migrants are welcomed, both as staff and as patients. I conclude by arguing that xenophobia has precipitated changes to the health service which do not qualify as "austerity" in the way that is claimed, but rather deliberately produce a "hostile environment" for migrants, despite this very likely generating economic losses.
Indexed as
Identifiers
31161409What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.