Training Blog

The credit crunch has hit private healthcare organisations, pretty hard as it has forced alot of people to return to the NHS for treatment; as they can’t afford to pay to receive the treatment privately. It is estimated that the 25% of the population who paid for private healthcare has declined to approximately 16% and experts estimate that this will continue to decline in the current economic crisis. The number of cosmetic procedures carried out has fallen as the banks are refusing loans, so people are unable to raise substantial funds to cover the cost of the procedures. To give you some idea of the scale of the problem in 2008, 215,000 ‘self-pay’ customers spent £515million on private treatments, of which £170million went on cosmetic surgery. A fifth of bank loans are taken out to fund cosmetic surgery and experts said that they were now much harder to get.

Private healthcare professionals blame not only the credit crunch but also the reduction in NHS waiting times for a decline in their business. According to Spire Healthcare, one of the UK’s biggest private providers, those who would normally pay for procedures were delaying treatment. Another private organisation BMI Healthcare, noted demand had fallen, particularly for operations such as hip and knee replacements.

So after an increase in the privatisation of healthcare it seems that the situation is being reversed as a result of the credit crunch, however it is possible that after the credit crunch has been resolved that the situation may revert back to private healthcare becoming more popular again.