BMA's Dr Chaand Nagpaul: Health tourism figures exaggerated

Up to £500m could be recovered from overseas visitors' and migrants' use of the NHS every year, ministers believe.

The figure represents a quarter of the costs of treating such patients, the Department of Health data suggested.

However Dr Chaand Nagpaul, who chairs the BMA's GP committee, told the BBC that the figures had "been exaggerated".

Speaking to the Today programme's Sarah Montague, he explained: "The figures themselves are quite unreliable because the authors themselves state it's based on large numbers of assumptions, they state the estimates are uncertain.

"It's our view that that this was exaggerated because it did not include, for example, the cost of implementing such a scheme."

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Tuesday 22 October 2013.