Britain’s private healthcare sector showed resilience towards the end of last year – even as it dedicated most of its capacity to the NHS to deal with the pandemic.
Figures from the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) show that in admissions in December were just 5% lower than December 2019.
That follows a year dominated by Covid-19 and a “relatively steady” November, when England went into a national lockdown, a PHIN spokesperson said.
In spite of the “slight” drop in activity in November, there were still over 60,000 private admissions. This was 10% lower than the number of admissions in November 2019.
The PHIN spokesperson said that the fall in overall activity in December “follows the trends set in 2018 and 2019, with elective treatment generally stopping over Christmas and new year”.
Other figures from PHIN data show:
- Trauma and orthopaedics (12%)
- General surgery (8%)
- Medical oncology (5%)
The PHIN spokesperson confirmed that there was a shift with medical oncology growing from 5% in October and November, to 8% in December, although he said that this follows a familiar pattern where elective care tails off over Christmas while cancer care continues.
Dr Jon Fistein, chief medical officer at PHIN, added that that the figures suggest “a strong end to a turbulent year in private healthcare”.
He said: “Although activity in December was down 5% on the same month the previous year, this is the closest to 2019 levels we have seen since the beginning of the pandemic.”