The so-called health tourism trips to reap the benefit of free health care on our NHS may now be on their way out at last.

Hospitals including Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust are taking a far more robust approach to getting payment from foreigners who turn up at our hospitals for treatment.

It’s not that the NHS is any less caring and these people will still receive free urgent treatment, unlike the service British holidaymakers would get in many countries overseas.

But the figures we reveal in today’s Examiner clearly strongly suggest that the service has been abused for many years.

The bad debt in our area has fallen massively by almost 90% down from £76,000 in 2011/12 to just £11,000 in the last financial year.

The get tough move is a result of the huge budget cuts being imposed on our health service, but the massive reduction makes you wonder why the problem and its major costs to an overstretched NHS hasn’t been pursued a long time before.

Many millions of pounds will have been lost nationwide over many years – money we could ill-afford then and certainly can’t afford to lose now.