“HOW long will it be before UK citizens are left to die on the floor as their families can't afford healthcare?” 

This is the question being posed today in a column for The Press by York Citizens Advice boss Fiona McCulloch.

The chief executive warns that the country appears to be moving into a two tier health system, dividing those who can afford private healthcare from the rest, who are stuck on NHS waiting lists.

She says it looks as if the UK is voting with its money to bring about the re-privatisation of health care, with a recent poll finding that 17 per cent of people would go private if they knew they were going to have to wait longer than 18 weeks, and with 69,000 self-funded treatments in the UK in the final three months of last year – a 39 per cent rise on the same period before the pandemic.

She also says a leading healthcare insurer has reported an 81 per cent increase in self-pay spending – meaning people who pay themselves instead of using private health insurance – between April and June compared to the same period in 2019.

"At an increase of 81 per cent year on year of people taking private health insurance, how long will it be before UK citizens are left die on the floor as their families can't afford healthcare? " she asks.

"It's a distressing thought and one that most of us couldn't bear to contemplate."
Ms McCulloch tells a 'terrible story' of her 86-year-old next-door neighbour, whose father was killed in the war and whose mother had to move in with her aunt and uncle. 

"Her uncle was a mechanic and looking after all of them pushed him to the financial brink," she says.

"He had a heart attack when he was 56 in the kitchen while eating dinner one night. As they had no money to call the doctor out to help him, they watched him die in front of them.

"It's a terrible story and it looks like the UK is voting with its money to bring about the re-privatisation of health care.

"But - many of us are contributing to this either unwittingly or in full knowledge that we're paying to help ourselves at the detriment of others."

The Government announced last September that the health and care system would receive a £36 billion funding settlement over the next three years, funded in part by a new health and care levy - a pledge that was billed as a record investment.

Since February, the NHS has managed to reduce two-year waits to close to zero after they rose above 20,000 for the first time. The next target is to remove waits longer than 18 months by April 2023 - NHS England says they are down by more than a third since January.