No decision yet on S1 health forms

THE UK did not stop issuing temporary S1 health forms on April 1, officials say.

The forms, which are used by early-retirees from Britain to access healthcare in France for up to two-and-a-half years, are at present still being issued as before, a Department of Health spokeswoman said.

“No changes to residual S1 forms came into force on April 1. These are important changes and we want to ensure we have fully considered the implications. We will make a further announcement shortly,” the spokeswoman said.

At the end of last year the government had said it would look at ceasing to issue the forms, “as soon as practicable, probably from April 2014”. This does not, however, apply to the permanent S1s issued to state pensioners.

The idea was part of a package of measures to save the NHS money; including finding new ways to better identify non-UK residents using NHS services, so as to bill them for using them. However, it also suggested looking at offering free services to people with a “long-term relationship” to the UK, notably relating to N.I. payments.

A detailed plan was expected in March but has not been published yet.

Once early-retirees’ S1 forms run out (or if they are not eligible for one due to not having made sufficient recent N.I. payments before leaving the UK) they typically take out private health insurance policies to cover them in France. Once they have been resident for five years they gain the right to join the French system.

However it appears it may be becoming easier to access French healthcare under the “CMU” system since the processing of applications from European expats was centralised in Nîmes in summer last year.

In recent years France has treated applications case by case, to see if the person has some reason (in theory unforeseen when they came to France) why they cannot access a comprehensive private policy. The European Commission however has stated the right should be based simply on residence in France.

During the financial year 2012/13, about 1,200 residual S1 forms were registered relating to people living in France.