Homeless persons and rough sleepers in the UK were one of the first classes of people to feel the effects of Brexit. Since that time, immigration enforcement teams have been clamping down on migrants who sleep rough using intelligence provided by local councils, the police and even the very charities that have been tasked with the duty of providing them with help and assistance. Rough sleepers from the European Union (‘EU’) have had their documents confiscated and told they have 28 days to leave the UK. Others have been held in detention centres pending administrative removal. In what would appear to be a breach of several fundamental human rights, Britain is the only EU country that permits indefinite immigration detention, so the homeless can be held for months while they attempt to prove their right of residence or make other appeals to stay.
Similarly, the National Health Service (‘NHS’) chiefs have been asked to suspend the handing over of confidential patient information to the Home Office. A memorandum of understanding between the Home Office and NHS Digital requires non-clinical details of patients to be handed to immigration officials and this information has enabled the Home Office to track down potential immigration offenders. It has been calculated that the NHS has passed information on more than 8,000 patients a year to the Home Office and Dr Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the House of Commons health select committee, has written to NHS Digital calling for an immediate halt to the handing over of this confidential information citing concerns regarding the way in which the NHS has exercised its duty to respect and protect confidentiality.
“The purpose of tracing these individuals is not to provide these individuals with medical assistance but to take enforcement action, presumably leading to deportation, and it seems to us to be misleading to include this point.”
Dr Sarah Wollaston
This reporting means persons are less likely to trust the agencies that have been established to look after their welfare and to seek timely medical assistance which can create additional burdens on an already overtaxed healthcare system. The Home Office had claimed their policy targeted migrants who had moved to the UK in an abuse of their right to free movement specifically for the purpose of sleeping rough while charitable organisations take the view that by reporting the homeless in this way they are in fact acting in the individuals’ best interests, but the High Court in the UK ruled on December 14, 2017 that the Home Office’s policy of detaining and deporting homeless persons from the European Economic Area was unlawful.
