Cleanliness of NHS hospitals has taken a back seat when it comes to the public’s concerns about the NHS. A new survey carried out by You Gov on behalf of The Sun has revealed that significantly more people named putting targets ahead of patient care and postcode rationing of drugs as bigger problems in the health service than cleanliness of wards. These concerns were also backed up when the 1,747 adults who took part in the study were posed with the statement “The Government’s introduction of targets for GPs and hospitals means more effort is concentrated on targets than patient care”. Over three quarters said they either strongly agreed, or tend to agree. As MRSA rates in hospitals have reduced recently, these new concerns may be encouraging more people to take out a quote for private medical insurance than issues that have been hitting the headlines for longer.


Other issues may be more of an annoyance to those people that have witnessed or experienced problems with the NHS first hand rather than hearing about them in the media. Almost half of the people (47 percent) who took part in the You Gov survey said they had been subject to unreasonable hospital charges. Cash plan private medical insurance could provide a solution to managing some of these charges. The NHS has begun to charge people if they wish to top up their treatment to a more expensive version and cash plan policies are ideal for this sort of situation. As they pay out a lump sum to help cover the cost of treatment, it gives the patient the option as to whether they would like to be treated in a private hospital, abroad or to help cover some of these charges in a NHS clinic.