British companies are selling their pioneering medical technologies abroad – because the NHS is so difficult to sell products to. One business, Touch Bionics, provided for the NHS for years before becoming the first company to move away from the health service in 2003. The American market in particular has been highly lucrative for these British companies, and they have been able to make huge profits from taking advantage of the large private health insurance sector. While this is fantastic news for British companies like Touch Bionics, who produces a bionic hand with moveable fingers, it could be frustrating for patients in the UK who could be benefitting from these technologies in their own country. Touch’s Director of Marketing, Phil Newman told the Telegraph, “We prefer the US model. The fragmentation of the marketplace means it's easier to get an entry into than a large institution like the NHS."


American patients have been benefitting from these new technologies for many years now. In fact, over 70 percent of the 1,000 Touch Bionic hands that have been produced and sold since September have been used on patients in the USA. This is nearly nine times the amount supplied to NHS patients – who only received 8 percent of those. People in the UK may wish to take out a private health insurance policy which would then allow them to travel to other countries like America for their medical treatment if they wish to do so. This could be especially important for those people who would highly benefit from these innovative technologies that even though they are supplied by British companies, are not readily available in the UK.