Now, rather than face long queues, growing numbers of patients in England are paying for private treatment instead. These one-off private patients – who do not have health insurance but might chose to have their hip or cararact operation privately – are increasing by up to 25% a year. NHS trusts spent more than their budgets by £770m last year, and these deficits are building up across the whole health service. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, prefers to think that there’s still fat to be trimmed from the health service to pay for it. There was a 33% increase in Department of Health spending on private providers between 2013-14 and 2015-16.

Source: The Guardian September 11, 2017 18:33 UTC