A vast majority of people in the UK receive the universal National Health Service (NHS) for medical treatments. The NHS provides permanent residents and expats in the UK with free health care. According to a report in the WIRED, around 1.3 million appointments with doctors, 260,000 hospital appointments and around 675 people entering serious, critical care are provided healthcare through the system.
In the UK, healthcare is purely funded by taxation and constitutes around 12 percent of GDP as stated by the Office for National Statistics. Even though it is the largest item of public expenditure, NHS is understaffed and underbudgeted, which has led to many strikes and walkouts by the medical staff.
Many patients suffer from long wait times, subpar conditions and bureaucratic hurdles. In November 2022, CNN reported that around 7.2 million patients in England were waiting for non-urgent or ‘elective’ care.
To avoid these waiting periods and better health services, many are now opting for private health care or taking up private health insurance.
According to the Private Healthcare Information Network that collects data on UK private healthcare, the number of patients paying directly for private hospital care increased by 34 percent in the second half of 2022 compared to the same period in 2019.
The rapid shift in demand for private healthcare services is posing a worry in front of the government and experts as it may increase the cost of healthcare and create a huge divide between those who can afford private facilities and those who can't.
A huge delay in the NHS treatments is also accounted to the incompetent data sharing system across different doctors, clinics and hospitals. It is seen that healthcare staff are unable to easily access information about their patients from different parts of the service, making decision-making and treatments longer than expected.
NHS has tried building a computer system to properly handle the vast data but has received backlash from the public over privacy issues. Recently, the NHS has announced that it will issue a contract to build a central operating system to allow free flow of anonymous patient data.
The public has largely been concerned about this contract because the top bidder for this contract is the US-based tech company, Palantir. The company co-founded by Peter Thiel was earlier an investment arm in CIA and military forces. Peter Thiel has also been a prominent donor to former US President Donald Trump’s campaign. Doctors, privacy campaigners, academics and politicians have expressed concerns regarding allowing the company access to private data of the British population.
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