Dr Damion Marmion urges all private healthcare players to unite around cost-effectiveness and quality
The private healthcare sector needs to unite around a vision that provides world-leading quality and greater cost-effectiveness so that more employers and individuals can afford it – and all stakeholders, be they hospital providers, brokers or insurers, can play their part in delivering it.
The economy may have returned to growth, but private spending on acute healthcare in the UK has declined and there is no indication of a bounce-back. This poses a serious challenge to all stakeholders in the private healthcare sector.
Everyone involved in the industry, every one of us who has signed up to improve access and affordability, is keeping a close eye on what happens next – but it’s not a time for observation. The landscape of private healthcare has the potential to change beyond recognition and, fortunately, it’s up to the industry to determine whether that’s for the better or the worse.
For decades there have been symptoms of risk in the sector – risk of a ‘downward spiral of demand’ that might be triggered by excessive price rises. There is a real and continuing risk that such a spiral could take hold and speed up, and this risk increases as the price of private medical insurance (PMI) rises. To date, the true extent of the issue has not been properly discussed, nor the issue appropriately addressed by us all.
At Bupa we recently launched an extensive report into the sector called Prescription for Growth, with analysis by leading healthcare experts Laing Buisson. This revealed for the first time what our industry could achieve if we work together to bring about reform for the benefit of our corporate and individual customers.
It is encouraging to see that employment figures are picking up – the UK has delivered record numbers of new jobs, with the number of people in employment growing by 780,000 in the past year alone – but the private paid healthcare sector has seen no growth in customers.
Although the volume of demand for cover and private spending on acute healthcare has dropped sharply since the beginning of the recession in 2009, it was stagnating even before the global credit crisis began. It has been broadly flat in real terms for almost a decade.
