The recently published Euro Health Consumer Index provides some interesting insights into the state of the UK health services and some encouragement for those who see the UK as a developing market for outbound medical tourists. The Index rates the public healthcare systems in 29 European countries on many factors such as clinical outcomes, quality of care, access to health services and patient information.
Austria emerges as the 2007 winner of the Euro Health Consumer Index, followed by the Netherlands, France, Switzerland and Germany.
The UK comes a very disappointing 17th out of the 29 countries; its score is dragged down by waiting lists and uneven quality performance. Medical tourism destinations such as France, Belgium, Estonia, Cyprus, Spain and the Czech Republic all outscore the UK.
As a separate exercise, the Euro Health Consumer Index 2007 included a value for money adjusted score, the "Bang-For-the-Buck adjusted score", which attempts to measure the value for money which the consumer gets from the healthcare system allowing for the spend on public healthcare in the country.
More bad news for the UK National Health Service.....
The UK sinks to 26th out of 29. Only Bulgaria, Poland and Latvia do worse.
Despite the efforts of successive UK governments, the NHS continues to deliver value for money to UK health consumers.
And that's probably good news for medical tourism companies!
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Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
UK media gives medical tourism a favourable press
The UK press continues to provide plenty of coverage for medical tourism, the vast majority of which is incredibly positive. Whereas the media are usually quick to find the "bad news" story, this has certainly not been the case with medical tourism. The recent exception was this story "How my smile was ruined by a dodgy dentist" in the Daily Mail.
However, the UK media is, in general, giving medical tourism a favourable press:
However, the UK media is, in general, giving medical tourism a favourable press:
- Record numbers go abroad for health treatment with 70,000 escaping NHS - Daily Mail
- 70,000 Brits have ops overseas - The Sun
- Fears and frustrations driving patients abroad - Sunday Telegraph
- Long distance surgery is a snip - The Times
The recent increases in UK patients traveling abroad are becoming somewhat of an enbarrassment for a Labour government which has invested significantly in the NHS in recent years. The Tory party have seen the opportunity:
"Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said the figures were a "terrible indictment" of government policies that were undermining the efforts of NHS staff to provide quality services."
Waiting times for operations, lack of access to new treatments and fears of MRSA and hospital infections are significant problems in the UK NHS.
And they all factors which will encourage more people to travel abroad for treatment......
Resources
You can see a regularly updated list of medical tourism news stories on Treatment Abroad.
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