The report details how many are\u00a0increasingly paying up to \u00a314,880 for operations such as a hip or knee replacement or cataract removal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that NHS waiting lists are at the heart of this growth in self-pay,\u201d said Keith Pollard, the chief executive of Intuition Communications, which undertook the research.<\/p>\n
Hospital firms that are profit-driven are experiencing rises of 15%-25% yearly in the number of uninsured \u201cself-payers\u201d, with the increase mainly driven by long waiting times to undergo non-urgent surgery in\u00a0NHS\u00a0hospitals.<\/p>\n
To pay for treatment, patients are often using their savings or taking out loans.<\/p>\n
The biggest increases have been in those paying for procedures to relieve disabling condition, interventions that are, without a long wait, increasingly difficult for people in England to obtain on the National Health Service.<\/p>\n
\u201cProviders have noted a direct correlation at a local level between reported excessive waiting times for surgery and demand for self-pay surgery,\u201d read the report.<\/p>\n
In July, for the first time in a decade, the total number of patients in England waiting for planned hospital care within the maximum 18 weeks guaranteed under the Referral to Treatment scheme exceeded 4 million.<\/p>\n
\u201c[There are] mixed messages from government,\u201d\u00a0said Dr Mark Holland, the president of the Society for Acute Medicine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey reassure the public on one hand, but at the same time there is a clear move for services to be privatised. The public have a right to know what the government\u2019s long-term strategy on healthcare really is. I fear we could make proper healthcare beyond the reach of those who are already disadvantaged.<\/p>\n
\u201cSelling off chunks of the NHS makes no sense. Assuming they want to make a profit, how can they maintain quality when services are already underfunded? My conclusion is that services and quality will be sacrificed for profit.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued, \u201c[NHS creator, Aneurin] Bevan\u2019s vision for the NHS should be revisited and updated as it approaches its 70th birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we must not allow is for the NHS to have its soul destroyed. If we are not careful the NHS will simply be a brand, lacking any substance and simply a limp apology by the government for a false promise. In every sense, this move will be tragic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shadow health secretary, Jon Ashworth, said, \u201cThis increase in patients paying for private treatment is because of the underfunding and neglect of the NHS under the Tories. It\u2019s a sad indictment of how bad things really are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A report has revealed how a growing number of patients are paying for private treatment to beat rationing and delays for treatment imposed by\u00a0the cash-strapped NHS. The report details how many are\u00a0increasingly paying up to \u00a314,880 for operations such as a hip or knee replacement or cataract removal. \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that NHS waiting lists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":24051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,38,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-national-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}