The use of private healthcare in the UK has doubled in the past 4 years: Here’s why
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With the establishment of the NHS in the 1940s, and the strengthening of the service in the 1950s, the need for private healthcare waned across the UK. Since those days the appeal of a private clinic has slowly come back into view, but it’s still been second on the list every single time.
However, we’ve seen this trend change massively in the past 4 years. A boom in the request for privatised healthcare has more than doubled. And even though access to private healthcare isn’t the only thing booming in the UK at the moment, the trend we’re seeing right now is rather significant.
What’s going on? Crunch time on the NHS has been regularly in the news lately, with strike after strike pushing patient fears to the front of all our minds. Knowing this, the reasons for a higher patient count in the private sector become clear.
Competitive pricing
It’s clear that private healthcare in the UK has been on a sharp incline since the Covid-19 pandemic. Private clinics in the UK make up around 5% of the current hospital count. On top of this, some state owned hospitals will also offer private treatments, and new private premises are being applied for on a daily basis.
In order to match the current demand, supply has slashed prices compared to what we would’ve seen 3 to 4 years ago, with some people paying as little as £400 a year to access private healthcare.
With the doubling in patient numbers we’ve seen, it’s fair to say that this trend of competitive pricing has more than attracted its fair share of new clients.
Reduced wait times
Long wait times are often touted as the main reason people turn to private healthcare. Of course, private healthcare clinics are more likely to have access to better hospital time management software, as well as have a significantly lower patient load.
This means someone can be off the waitlist and through their surgery weeks before they would’ve even seen a doctor on the NHS.
People going through an ADHD assessment, for example, have to wait an average of 3 years on the NHS for a diagnosis. In 2019, the average waiting list was a year. With this number tripling, for some private diagnosis may be the only way to get the healthcare results they need.
Better choice of treatment
Private healthcare clinics are also in a position to offer more treatment options to those in need, thanks to their increased cash flow. Often this means a person has the right to choose between standard treatment or more experimental options, offered by a practice that has the resources to see the course through to the end.
For the NHS to keep up with such demand for new and revitalised treatment pathways, the government would need to outline a better funding plan. As of yet, development on this front has been implemented incredibly slowly, with the most recent press release issued on August 15th.