... as more pay for private surgery

PRIVATE healthcare is seeing a major boom as patients turn away from the crisis-ridden NHS and pay for their own operations, say analysts.

Companies offering ‘self-pay’ treatments saw income soar from £ 454million to £701million between 2012 and 2016 – a rise of 53 per cent.

A report by market analysts Laing-Buisson says patients are increasingly paying for operations they might have expected to be provided on the NHS.

They put this down to the ‘very high waits for NHS diagnosis and treatment’.

The statistics exclude fees paid via health insurance and any cosmetic treatments. Experts said the increase was particularly high among the over-50s.

Spire, a private medical care provider, said its self- pay revenues had risen 8 per cent since January.

People are turning to the private sector in particular for ‘elective’ non- emergency operations such as cataract surgery and replacements for arthritic or worn joints.

Since 2013, those waiting more than six months for such operations had tripled, with 445,360 such cases. Professor Derek Alderson, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, told the Sunday Telegraph it was ‘shameful’ patients were resorting to paying for operations that should be free.

The Daily Mail revealed last month that even NHS trusts are allowing patients to pay to skip queues for hip replacements, knee operations and cataract surgery.

Two thirds of NHS trusts offer private facilities that charge for rapid treatment – including up to £15,000 for a hip operation.

A Government spokesman said the NHS was carrying out 2.2million more operations than in 2009/10.