NHS restrictions on cancer surgery could boost private medical insurance
Debbie Kleiner-Gaines from the Association of Medical Insurance Intermediaries (AMII) comments, “If someone has private medical insurance, their age would not be a factor as to whether they would be granted access to cancer surgery which is made on clinical and eligibility grounds. If the alarming report in a recent national newspaper on research carried out by the National Cancer Intelligence Network, is true, this shows there is a clear reduction in the number of cancer operations for the middle aged and elderly, possibly affecting thousands. Suggestions are made that this is due to a combination of poor access to specialist treatment and reluctance by some parts of the NHS to consider surgery as inappropriate for older patients including middle-aged. If this is correct, then private medical insurance could well have a bigger role to play in many more people’s lives.”
Private medical insurance news: 31 March 2011
