30,000 Britons raid savings to pay for private hip ops to avoid NHS delays

Ageing Britons are raiding their savings to pay for private operations rather than live in pain due to NHS backlogs, it has been revealed.

Top of the list is hip operations where the number of people going private surged from 17,000 in 2019 to almost 30,000 in 2022.

It is thought the figure will have risen further since then against the background of rising waiting lists fuelled by strikes.

There have also been spikes for other common operations such as knee replacements and cataract removal, while more Britons are turning to private GPs.

The figures come from the Health Foundation using official data and covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Foundation said the fact people are having to find thousands of pounds to cover the cost “will have had substantial financial implications for many of the patients who opted to fund their care privately”.

Privately funded elective inpatient activity in England grew by about 10.2 percent between 2019-20 and 2022-23.

This represented a small increase in the overall proportion of inpatient elective care paid for privately — from 7.4 per cent in 2019-20 to 8.3 per cent in 2022-23 — the research found.

Josh Keith, assistant director of data analytics at the Health Foundation, said although there had only been a small increase in the proportion of elective inpatient care in England that was privately funded, this growth was “notably more pronounced for some procedures, such as hip replacements”.

He told the FT: “The trends we have observed do raise important questions about equity.

“Not everybody can afford to pay for care, and those who can afford to pay might not be those who are most in need.”

David Hare, chief executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, said: “Data shows that in the past few years record numbers of patients are choosing to ‘go private’ to get swift access to the care they need.”

He said this included “common paid-for procedures such as cataracts, hip and knee replacements as well as scans and GP appointments, but also more complex treatments with chemotherapy now the second most common private procedure”.

The Foundation’s researchers suggested that the growth of people seeking private care would have been higher but for the fact availability of appointments and treatments is limited.

Researchers said that about 13 percent of consultants delivered some privately funded healthcare in a given year, with estimates suggesting roughly 90 percent of those also spent some of their time working in the NHS.

A study by the Foundation quoted LaingBuisson, a market intelligence group specialising in private health services, that about one in 10 people in the UK was covered by private medical insurance in 2022.

It said: “This is the highest level measured since 2020, but still below the peak of around 12 per cent in 2008, shortly before the global financial crisis.

“This suggests economic factors may influence the uptake of private health insurance as much as NHS waiting lists do.”

Scott Gallacher, Director at wealth management firm Rowley Turton, said a growing number of Britons are tapping into their property wealth to fund private care.

“Due to NHS delays as a result of the pandemic, we've seen people turning to equity release to fund hip or knee replacements,” he said.

“There's little point having capital tied up in your home but being unable to enjoy your retirement due to a dodgy hip or knee.”