Patients wanting to escape Britain’s National Health Service are increasingly turning to the private sector. Often this involves paying directly for an operation at a private hospital, or joining an insurance scheme like BUPA, or taking part in a medical savings account from companies like HSA. But people are also increasingly taking advantage of globalisation, too, to get lower-cost private healthcare overseas.
Although dentistry is supposedly available on the National Health Service, in practice so few dentists co-operate with the state sector, you have to go private. People are starting to go to Eastern Europe and even Istanbul to have private dental treatment and a fraction of the cost in the UK. People are even going overseas for major non-dental treatments like hernia operations. After all, if you’re going to go through an ordeal like a hernia op, you want to be looked after properly - pampered, really - and that’s not something the NHS is good at. Oh, and you probably want the operation ASAP, which the NHS isn’t exactly noted for.
We are going to see a lot more health tourism - and a good thing too.
Tags: BUPA