Private hospital admissions soar to record high as hundreds of thousands rely on insurance

Private hospitals saw record admissions this year after hundreds of thousands of people sought care through their insurance amid rocketing NHS waiting lists, new figures show.

Between January and June 443,000 private treatments took place – a 7% rise from 2022, the vast majority of which were claimed through medical insurance policies.

According to the Private Hospital Information Network (PHIN), which collects data from hospitals in the sector, there was a 12% increase in the number of people paying for care via insurance with 157,000 people using this route from January to March and 148,000 from April to June this year.

The news comes as the NHS’s waiting list continues to grow with almost 7.8 million appointments recorded. Recently published data shows that there is a total of 6.5 million individual people on the waiting list.

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Source: The Independent, 7 December 2023