NHS charges - EEA national

I don’t have much experience in this area and am struggling to hunt down the relevant legislation.

Cl is EEA national and receives invalidity pension of some kind from Portugal. He has not worked in UK but is living here with his wife who works f/t, they have been here over 4 years.

He has recently been sent a form by NHS Overseas Healthcare Team stating that it is likely Portugal is competent state for paying for healthcare due to payment of pension, and asks whether cl has S1 form.

I am supposing that this is as a result of the co-ordination rule (883/04), and follows that as the EEA state paying a pensions is responsible for sickness benefits, it is also respondible for healthcare costs. However the co-ordination rules do not make specific mention (that I can find) to healthcare costs, and the NHS online guidance suggests that so long as someone is ordinarily resident in UK then UK should be competent state.

Can anyone help me with this one?

NHS costs would be ‘sickness benefits in kind’ - see art1(va) 883/04. As such, state paying pension (if the benefit counts as such - art 1(w)) would be responsible for paying sickness benefit in kind (art 25), even though the state of residence provides the sickness benefit in kind (art 24).

Great, thanks Hkrishna - that’s been niggling at me for a while!