The National Health Service, known to all Britons as the NHS, remains one of the UK's most cherished institutions. When it launched nearly 80 years ago, offering free healthcare to every citizen, it was nothing short of a revolution. But the NHS of today is very different to the NHS of 1948. The population it serves has grown by 40%, people are living longer, and costs have spiralled.
Against this backdrop, more companies are offering private medical insurance. From an organisational standpoint, the rationale is compelling: it serves as an effective recruitment incentive, mitigates absenteeism, and enhances workplace performance, all while complementing broader corporate initiatives focused on staff health and wellbeing.
The Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN), a membership organisation for independent healthcare providers in the UK, points to a general attitude shift towards private healthcare in the UK.
According to their Director of Communications, Cara McDonagh:
“Our latest research shows a growing openness amongst all parts of society to use private healthcare - across all regions, age groups and political views.
“People have increasingly pragmatic and unideological views about how they access the treatment they need.”
According to the IHPN’s Going Private 2025 study, 71% of 2,011 respondents expressed a willingness to consider private healthcare - reflecting a nearly 10 percentage point increase over two years.
For patients, there are some clear attractions to 'going private,' including easier access to appointments, consultant care and faster diagnostic results - all valuable to those seeking reassurance or answers during times of uncertainty. But the rise in private healthcare use is also down to access. Almost one in four people who have used private healthcare say they did so because they have private medical insurance.
McDonagh sees younger people as a key driver of this shift, describing them as the "Netflix Generation" - people accustomed to convenient, digitally led services in other areas of their lives, and increasingly expecting the same level of accessibility from healthcare.
These changing consumer preferences are also raising the expectations of employers - IHPN’s research found that 65% of people believe all workplaces should offer private healthcare as part of their employee benefits package. Among 25-44-year-olds, seven in ten say they would be more likely to apply for a job if it offered private health insurance.
Greg Swarbrick, Partnerships Director at the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN), points out that the growth of workplace private healthcare also comes with added employer responsibilities.
PHIN is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that collects and publishes information on private healthcare to help patients make informed decisions.
From PHIN’s perspective, there is a gap between people’s willingness to use private healthcare and their understanding of how to access it. Its research found that more than three-quarters of the UK public are open to using private healthcare, yet only around a quarter feel confident about how to navigate the system. More than a quarter of those surveyed (28%) said they would not know where to start when it comes to accessing private healthcare.
For employers then, offering health insurance is only part of the equation. They also need to ensure employees understand what their benefits mean in practice.
“Clear and early communication to staff about their policies is crucial,” Swarbrick says.
Private insurance is also not necessarily comprehensive. Policies may cover acute care, mental-health interventions, physiotherapy or some newly diagnosed cancers, while excluding chronic or preexisting conditions. “There may also be additional costs to pay,” Swarbrick says.
While more companies may offer private healthcare both IHPN and PHIN emphasise that private healthcare is not a replacement to the NHS, with patients increasingly using both systems for different aspects of their care.
“We think that the NHS and private healthcare are complementary services,” Swarbrick says. McDonagh similarly notes that people are increasingly “comfortable using a mixture of both”.
The predominance of the NHS when it comes to looking at the health of Britons should not be underestimated with around 90% of hospital admissions in England continuing to take place in NHS facilities.
If private healthcare is to complement rather than replace the NHS, employers need to consider where their support can have the greatest benefit for their staff.
PHIN advises businesses to consider “what your workforce’s particular needs, or likely needs, are going to be”, taking into account demographics, the nature of the work and the environment in which employees operate.
For businesses, the appeal is practical: private healthcare can support recruitment and retention, give employees greater choice and potentially reduce the disruption caused by ill-health. But the decision to offer it raises broader questions for business owners: what does good healthcare support look like for their workforce, what do employees actually value, and how can private healthcare best sit alongside existing wellbeing initiatives and the NHS?
These questions are likely to become increasingly important as employers take a greater interest in the health and wellbeing of their workforces. As expectations around employee benefits evolve in the UK, understanding where private healthcare can make the greatest difference to employees - will be an important part of that conversation.
