What was claimed
The government has announced that anyone over the age of 60 will be charged £5 to see their GP.
Our verdict
False. The government has made no such announcement, and the videos claiming this are fake.
Over-60s won’t be charged £5 for a GP appointment
Videos falsely claiming that the NHS is “no longer free for over-60s” have been widely shared online
The NHS remains free at the point of use for all those ordinarily resident in the UK and we’ve seen no evidence of any announcement or plans to charge over-60s for GP appointments, as one of the videos claims.
The series of videos, all of which feature overlaid text reading “Healthcare betrayal: the NHS no longer free for over-60s”, includes a clip featuring a voice apparently intended to resemble that of the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer saying: “I can confirm that starting this October anyone over the age of 60 will be charged £5 just to see their GP”.
The audio, which has likely been generated using AI, has been dubbed over a video of Mr Starmer from September, in which he addresses the UK’s official recognition of a Palestinian state. In the original video he makes no reference to any plans to charge people to see their GP.
Join 72,953 people who trust us to check the facts
Sign up to get weekly updates on politics, immigration, health and more.
Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.
It is already the case that prescriptions and some other NHS services often need to be paid for in England—however over-60s are exempt from some costs (for example, all over-60s are entitled to free prescriptions). People may also choose to pay for private healthcare.
We’ve fact checked a number of similar videos announcing non-existent policies recently, including other false claims about plans to charge patients for NHS care. We wrote about this in more detail in September.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the government has made no such announcement.