Private patient numbers double amid NHS troubles

More people in Wales are using their savings or loans to pay for healthcare than elsewhere in the UK

Private hospital admissions are at a record high in Wales, according to new figures.

There were almost 8,000 admissions to Welsh private hospitals in the first three months of 2024, the Private Healthcare Information Network said.

In the same period five years ago, the figure was just under 4,500.

Jeremy Miles, Wales' new health secretary, said he "doesn't want to see" patients having to turn to the private sector.

The Private Healthcare Information Network was established by the UK government in 2014 to offer independent information about private healthcare.

It said Wales was unique in the UK in that the dominant payment method for private treatment was self-pay - from savings or loans - rather than through private health insurance schemes.

Its figures show both self-pay and insurance-funded private hospital admissions were at record levels in the first quarter of 2024.

There were 2,175 private cataract removal surgeries between 1 January and the end of March this year.

Gwenan Roberts, 68, from the Llyn Peninsula in Gwynedd, who recently paid to remove a cataract in her eye, said she felt fortunate she had the means to pay privately.

"I was facing losing independence within months - I wouldn't have been able to drive at night, possibly during the daytime too," she told Newyddion S4C.

"I decided I had to go privately because of the long waiting list."

Ms Roberts says she went private to avoid losing her independence

Ms Roberts said the surgery had improved her quality of life.

"Losing independence, especially in the countryside - you can't go anywhere, can't do anything. It's completely life changing.

"I don't have to rely on anyone else any longer. Within a week, I was back driving and I can see things much better now.

"I was fortunate I have the means to pay, but I appreciate that is not true for many others.

"It's such a simple treatment. A great many could be done very quickly and they could get rid of the extremely long waiting list swiftly."

Her local Member of the Senedd (MS), and Plaid Cymru's health spokesperson Mabon ap Gwynfor, said long waiting lists for NHS treatments were to blame for the increase in the number of patients paying for private health treatments.

"Those who have the means are able to pay for private care. That creates a two-tier health system here in Wales where the most deprived and the poorest and most vulnerable are left behind."

"We can't have that in Wales, that's not part of our tradition and the Labour government needs to step up and change that."

Conservative MS Tom Giffard also said he believed patients were being "forced" to go privately and addressing waiting lists should be the Welsh health secretary's "top priority".

Mark Exworthy, a professor of health policy at Birmingham University, said long waiting lists were a major factor behind the rise, but not the only one.

"It may be a sign of changing attitudes and changing expectations of what the NHS can deliver in a timely manner," he said.

He also said the private medical sector was changing the way it advertised to prospective customers.

"They're trying to recruit people for out-of-pocket spending rather than signing them up to longer-term insurance plans," said Prof Exworthy.

"People are tending to pay out of pocket, whether that's from their own savings or their month-to-month spending.

"That has huge implications for health inequalities as to who is able to afford these."

In a statement, the Welsh government said: "Long waits for ophthalmology have almost halved since their peak in April 2022 but we know there is more to do.

"Part of this work is the establishment of a regional cataract service, which will urgently reduce waiting times."