PATIENTS NOT PASSPORTS: Migrants Access to Healthcare During the Coronavirus Crisis | June 2020 Jamal’s experience Jamal (not his real name), based at a migrant centre, works to ensure that asylum seekers and refugees have access to mainstream health services. While the centre is closed during the lockdown, support continues over the phone. Those supported by Jamal face a range of barriers to healthcare. GP surgeries frequently require specific forms of ID and/or proof of address, which newly arrived asylum seekers often don’t yet have. Some have improved their access requirements in recent months, but many have not. This means that asylum seekers have to register for a GP far from where they live, which is hard for many who cannot afford to travel. These barriers have worsened as a result of the coronavirus lockdown. With many services and NHS facilities now physically inaccessible, Jamal and colleagues are spending a lot of time supporting clients to register for services electronically, and some GP surgeries have said that they are not registering asylum seekers. Yeah, a lot of places the door is locked or the building is locked. You can’t even come in to register.” In Jamal’s experience, there are signs that charging legislation has begun to introduce a culture of discrimination in the health service. For instance, whilst charging does not apply to primary care, ‘it still filters down’. Jamal has experienced receptionists not registering people because they are told that they ‘could be an illegal immigrant’, and GPs not referring patients to secondary care because they are ‘not eligible for it’. They shouldn’t be making those decisions, obviously. That language of the Hostile Environment is coming through in the GP surgeries.” Another man with severe mental health issues was asked why he doesn’t ‘go back home’ by a nurse. 15