Third of Scots abandon ‘dying' NHS for private care

Times

5 hours ago

Almost a third of Scottish households have used private healthcare in the past two years, a survey reveals, as doctors' leaders warn the NHS is 'dying'.
The majority of those who paid for treatment said they did so because waiting times on the NHS were too long.
Iain Kennedy, chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) Scotland, will tell a major UK conference on Tuesday that Scottish society is divided between those 'languishing' in line for treatment and those who can afford to pay to access care more swiftly.
Research for the union found 17 per cent of Scots had used private medicine in the past two years and a further 14 per cent lived with someone who had.
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In an address to the Annual Representative Meeting of the BMA in Liverpool, Kennedy will say: 'It is abundantly clear that Scotland has been divided into those who can afford private healthcare and those languishing on ever longer NHS waiting lists.
'Now, I don't believe anyone made an active choice to pursue this path towards a private health service. Rather, it is a failure to get to grips with an evolving population and its health needs. But, be in no doubt, the NHS is dying before our very eyes.'
The latest waiting times figures for Scotland, released last month by monitoring body Public Health Scotland, showed 63,406 people waiting for an initial hospital consultation for a year — up 34 per cent compared to March 2024. Almost a quarter of patients on treatment waiting lists had been queuing for a year, with 7,969 waiting more than two years.
Kennedy, a Highland GP, told The Times his conversations with colleagues in England suggested waiting times were worse in Scotland than south of the border. He said: 'I had a patient recently asking me about private dermatology [skin] services and I said you are going to be waiting six months for private healthcare. We have under invested so much in healthcare in Scotland that not even the private sector is able to deal with the problems we have got ourselves into.'
In December last year The Times revealed two year waits for NHS treatment were 100 times higher in Scotland than south of the border. Meanwhile, NHS England waiting times have fallen to their lowest level in two years at 7.39 million, down from 7.42 million, as of June.
The new BMA poll, involving more than 1,200 Scottish residents, found 64 per cent of households which had used private healthcare did so because NHS waiting times were too long. To fund the care and treatment 20 per cent had reduced leisure activities, 9 per cent had cut essential items such as groceries and 9 per cent had borrowed money.
Of those who had not used private healthcare, 46 per cent said it was because they could not afford it.
According to data published by the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) there were 46,000 private hospital admissions in Scotland in 2023, an 11 per cent increase on the previous year and up 31 per cent on 2019.
Cam Donaldson, emeritus professor of health economics at Glasgow Caledonian University and author of the newly released book Financing Health and Social Care, said the survey findings reflected the 'crisis of access across the whole system'.
He warned if enough 'middle class people' took out health insurance, they would start to demand tax breaks and the decline of the NHS would become irreversible.
'The best way out of this crisis is more public funding possibly through taxation,' he said. 'What will happen if we do nothing is this trend will continue and we are just going to come into this constant vicious cycle of gradual decline.'
Kennedy will say at the conference that the BMA's warnings about the state of the health service in Scotland have been repeatedly ignored by the Scottish government: 'Patients are suffering, unable to access the care they need when they need it, or having to use their own hard-earned money to go private. Everyone knows it is unacceptable.'
Sandesh Gulhane, a GP and the Scottish Conservative Party health spokesman, said: 'The fact that so many Scots are having to raid their life savings to go private for treatment isn't just unfair, it's immoral and at odds with the founding principles of our health service.'
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour health spokeswoman, described the survey findings as 'damning' and said the SNP had taken a 'wrecking ball' to the founding principles of the Scottish NHS.
However, Neil Gray, Scottish health secretary, claimed the party was protecting a service publicly owned and free at the point of need. He said: 'That's why we are investing a record £21.7 billion in health and social care this year, including £106 million to deliver over 150,000 additional appointments and procedures.
'But we recognise some of the concerns raised by the BMA, and we are determined to deliver the reform our NHS needs to ensure it provides quality care for everyone who needs it now and into the future.'