A quieter spring saw a 1.4% dip in insurer-funded healthcare following a strong start to the year, but the data also pointed to a recovery in volumes at the end of the quarter.
And Healthcode managing director Peter Connor reinforced this trend noting the firm had seen insured claims continue to rise during the summer.
Invoice data from Healthcode revealed the clearing organisation for medical invoices validated more than 2.94 million invoices in the second quarter of the year.
While this indicated a slight rise of 1.4% year-on-year, it was 0.7% lower than Q1.
However, a busy first quarter of the year meant the total volume for the first six months of 2025 was still up 4% year-on-year at 5.9 million.
In addition, insured activity regained momentum by the end of the quarter: the volume for June (999,097) was up by 0.5% on May and by 9% year-on-year.
Peter Connor, managing director at Healthcode (pictured), said: “Although our Q2 data shows that insured activity slowed slightly over spring, this proved to be a temporary lull.
“We’ve seen volumes recover in recent weeks across all regions and settings while our current full-year projection anticipates another year of growth for insured healthcare.
“In the context of the government’s new 10 Year Health Plan which looks to make use of private sector capacity, it’s in everyone’s interest to see the private sector thrive, alongside the NHS.”
Treatment setting
Invoice volumes from hospitals remained unchanged from Q2 2024 while those from non-hospital settings rose by an average 2% year-on-year in Q2.
In hospitals, there were 2.7 million invoices for outpatient care in Q2 which was up 1.6% year-on-year and 273,747 invoices for admitted care relatively unchanged from Q2 2024.
Orthopaedics continued as the biggest hospital specialty in terms of invoice volume with 193,000 in Q2 (up 10% year-on-year on average).
Radiology was second with 116,000 but this represented a decline of 15% compared with Q2 2024.
Invoice volumes for cardiology and obstetrics and gynaecology were lower than these hospital specialities but both categories saw year-on-year growth in Q2 – up 10% and 8% respectively.
While most of the top 10 hospital specialties saw a dip in activity in April and May, all but radiology and pathology/haematology returned to year-on-year growth in June.
Countries and regions
Breaking the UK down by nation, Scotland witnessed the biggest year-on-year increase in invoice volumes in Q2 – up 10% on average, followed by Northern Ireland (up 7%) and Wales (up 2%).
Invoice volumes in England were in line with Q2 2024 but this is where most private healthcare activity takes place.
In Q2 the only English regions to post year-on-year growth were the South West (up 7% on average), Yorkshire and the Humber (up 3%) and London (up 1%) while the West Midlands witnessed no change. Conversely, all regions saw year-on-year growth in Q1.
While April and May were relatively quiet compared with 2024, a return to growth was seen across the country in June.
