Is the use of privately funded health care on the rise?

This Health Foundation analysis explores trends in attitudes, activity and spending on privately funded health care. Where possible, it draws on data covering the whole of the UK, but some data sources exclude Northern Ireland or only cover England. While there may be some distinctive regional trends at play, The Health Foundation believes the findings generally hold true for the UK overall.

• The evidence from public surveys does not show a major post-pandemic ‘surge’ in how likely the public are to pay for privately funded health care if they need it. Only a minority of people say they are open to privately funding health care, or that they already do so, and the proportion seems to be relatively stable. 

• Analysis of activity data shows a similar picture. Privately funded elective inpatient activity in England grew by around 10.2% between 2019/20 and 2022/23. But this represents only a small increase in the overall proportion of inpatient elective care activity that is privately funded, from 7.4% in 2019/20 to 8.3% in 2022/23. 

• There have, however, been marked increases in the private funding of some specific procedures, for example hip replacements, for which the number funded privately has almost doubled since 2019.