Wes Streeting: Progress on NHS delays as private insurance soars
Employer-provided health insurance coverage has reached a 30-year high, with 4.8m people now covered, as businesses ramped up employment benefits amid the NHS backlog.
UK health insurers paid out a record £4bn in 2024, averaging £11m every day, according to new figures by the ABI.
Despite NHS data showing that the waiting list fell by more than 86,000 in November, 7.31m people across the country are still waiting for treatment.
Health secretary Wes Streeting told BBC local radio on Thursday that “waiting lists are falling, ambulances are arriving faster, and patient satisfaction in general practice (GP) is improving.”
“But, and it is a really important but, especially coming from me, there is still so much more to do.”
“I found that as health secretary, turning around the NHS is like turning around a tanker,” Streeting added.
The ABI data emphasised the role of private insurance in complementing the NHS and reducing economic inactivity. “Health insurance continues to help individuals and their loved ones access timely medical testing, treatment, and care when it matters most,” Rebecca Ward, head of health and protection policy at the ABI, explained.
Insurance is the new employee benefit
She noted it was “another record-breaking year for coverage, claims and payouts underscores the vital role of insurers in maintaining a healthy UK population.”
This comes as City businesses have been increasingly offering private healthcare insurance as an employee benefit when trying to recruit new staff, recruiters and insurers told City PM. As the UK faces a “quiet but urgent crisis” in workplace sickness, costing the country around seven per cent of gross domestic product each year.
When Streeting took on the role, he stated that Labour should use spare private healthcare capacity to slash NHS waiting lists.