Private healthcare provides a safety blanket when NHS is under strain - Bob Andrews

With more than one in six people in England expected to wait for NHS treatment this winter and hospitals forced to run at 60 per cent capacity due to the coronavirus pandemic, many individuals are facing significant delays in the diagnosis and treatment of other illnesses, adding to the ongoing public health crisis.
Bob AndrewsBob Andrews
Bob Andrews

Thankfully, there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact the lives of everyone in the UK, I firmly believe there is a role for affordable private healthcare in improving the nation’s health and reducing perhaps the greatest strain the NHS has ever felt.

There is a view that private healthcare is insidiously undermining the integrity of the principle of universal healthcare for all and is frequently a football used in discussion topics such as Brexit. This is one view, perhaps a simplistic one, and tends to forget the role that mutual societies have played in the provision of healthcare since before the NHS was founded.

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This view also fails to recognise changing demographics and the havoc that the cyclical nature of government investment can have on public healthcare provision.

Private healthcare packages not only offer great support to families and businesses but our NHS too, and the provision of private healthcare should not be seen as direct competition with the NHS or an expensive luxury as it is often perceived.

A privately-provided health package could significantly help people in a time of need, providing a safety blanket – rather than a competing service – for when the NHS is under strain. To be most effective, the NHS and private healthcare should work harmoniously together to the benefit of the nation’s health.

Whilst the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted some of this cooperation, with private hospitals including the Benenden Hospital in Kent, opening their beds up to the NHS and undertaking a number of procedures on behalf of local trusts to tackle wait times, the reality is that collaboration already existed and will continue to do so.

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This is why the de-stigmatisation of private healthcare and conversation around its role must continue once we come through the other side of the coronavirus crisis.

In the workplace, healthcare can be perceived as a ‘nice-to-have’ rather than a must-have and is often seen to only be for senior members of staff, but this shouldn’t and needn’t be the case. A universal healthcare offering for all employees is a very achievable, cost-effective, and valuable option for businesses.

The conversation around employee wellbeing is nothing particularly new, it has been highlighted further by the stresses and strains placed on workers during the pandemic. Indeed, a recent Benenden Health report found that more than a third of employees in Yorkshire would leave their job if their employer wasn’t adequately looking after their mental wellbeing and almost a quarter have done so previously.

The presence of a universal healthcare plan within a wider benefits package is proving a growing factor in recruiting and retaining the best talent.

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At Benenden Health, we want everyone to have the opportunity to be as healthy as they can be and to have access to affordable healthcare.

We are extremely fortunate in this country to have the NHS and Benenden Health is proud to support it wherever we can.

That’s why we recently made a significant donation to Royal Brompton Hospital, an NHS hospital, to pioneer research into the cause and effects of Covid-19. If there’s one thing that the coronavirus pandemic has proven, it’s that collaboration like this is priceless.

By Benenden Health Chief Executive Bob Andrews

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Thank you

James Mitchinson