Private healthcare is worth £40 billion per year in the UK, according to new statistics from Laing and Buisson.
The independent sector makes up close to a third of the £140 billion annual value of healthcare in the UK.The study did not take into account £32 billion of NHS spending which cannot be allocated to specific services.
Editor and Laing and Buisson chief executive William Laing said: “Independent sector providers now play a significant role in virtually every aspect of health and social care.
“Companies which focus on providing outsourced services for public sector agencies, like the NHS and local councils, have been hard hit by the ‘feast to famine’ change which has been a feature in all publicly funded services.”
Independent providers in primary medical care and community health are “keen to contribute” to moving healthcare into the community and away from hospitals, he said.
Money made by services such as elderly care homes, education in special schools and colleges, homecare and private hospitals was calculated in the 2012-2013 edition of Laing’s healthcare Market Review.
Laing and Buisson is a provider of information and market intelligence on the independent health, community care and childcare sectors.
