Private healthcare could become ‘a new normal’ as the NHS becomes weaker
It’s a boom in private healthcare. It has never been, or needed to be, a major provider of diagnostics and treatment in Britain. The provision of healthcare by the NHS to all, free at the time of delivery, has ensured that. This also explains why the use of private health insurance has remained stuck at around 10% of the population. The very existence of health care left little room for private sector expansion.
The fragile state of the NHS – which still provides people with mainly high-quality care, but can no longer do so so quickly – is a historic opportunity for the private sector to go from small to large. It could become what one expert calls “the new normal” – a not-unusual place where people receive treatment.
The private sector knows that history is on its side. The long delays to NHS care that are now endemic – and cause so much worry, risk and harm to those who wait – will not get better anytime soon, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies said last week. That’s why it’s promoting its services like never before – and finding that more and more people want or need them.
Leaflets that go through doors offering ‘rapid access to diagnostics and treatment’ at a local private hospital are aimed at people fearful of waiting weeks, months or even years for the NHS equivalent. A recent edition of the Metro newspaper featured adverts for 20% off breast health checks in Harley Street, advanced MRI body scans “from just £199”, obesity treatment using the Allurion balloon and laser eye surgery by “world-class consultants and surgeons ” .
Business is good because all three of the sector’s revenue streams are growing, and – again thanks to the NHS’s woes – are likely to continue growing for the foreseeable future. Recent figures from Healthcodewhich tracks the use of private healthcare, showed that a record number of procedures were carried out on people with private health insurance (PMI) in private clinics and hospitals in 2023 – an activity worth more than £4 billion.
As more and more people come under PMI, either by paying for the policy themselves or getting it from employers – with many now offering it as a new perk to help staff overcome their struggles to access NHS care overcome – that record seems likely to be broken again.
Separate data published last Tuesday from the Private Healthcare Information Network showed that private hospitals cared for 665,000 people between January and September 2023, combining PMI and ‘self-payers’ – a new record and up 7% year-on-year. The most common procedures included blood tests, knee replacement, peripheral nerve blocks, eardrum surgery, and tonsil removal.
The number of self-payers is 32% higher than before the Covid-19 period, although it fell slightly from 69,000 in the previous quarter to 66,000 in July to September 2023.
The only other negative for the sector was a decline in the number of people seeking cosmetic surgery, such as rhinoplasty, as more people go abroad for it. In the past month alone, a friend paid £4,000 to have a bone spur on her foot removed, a family friend agreed to spend £12,000 on a new hip, and an acquaintance decided to seek private treatment for his enlarged prostate because he peed in a bag. while waiting for NHS care is exhausting.
And new figures from the Independent Healthcare Providers Network show that private hospitals in England are carrying out record numbers of procedures on NHS patients, paid for by the NHS – 1.67 million last year, compared to 1.3 million in 2019.
Even a Labor government committed to revitalizing the NHS will not seek to disrupt the growing interdependence of the NHS. One patient’s desperation increases the dividend of one private provider, yes, but it also means that person receives care that the weakened, overwhelmed NHS can no longer provide when it is needed. Tragically, that won’t change anytime soon.