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Landslide win for Labour in UK general election

The UK’s Labour Party has won a huge parliamentary majority in the country’s national election. A labour government could mean greater opportunities for the UK’s private hospital sector, especially given the party has said it will not hesitate to use private sector capacity in tackling its “top priority” aim of cutting NHS waiting lists.

PMI’s changing business model

Access to primary care is now the number one reason people in the UK want private medical insurance (PMI), according to data collected by UK health insurer Vitality. Other NHS countries have been seeing similar trends since Covid. Katie Tryon, Vitality’s Director of Health Strategy, spoke about how this has completely changed the PMI business model — for the better — at HBI’s conference last month.

Essential actions amid rising healthcare cyberattacks: all you need to know

A recent NHS cyber attack resulted in the postponement of over 1,100 operations, including nearly 200 cancer treatments, and exposed 400 GB of sensitive NHS and patient data. Cyber attacks on healthcare are growing more frequent, intensifying strain on the sector. As healthcare undergoes greater digitisation and collects more patient data, preparing for and defending against cyber attacks is paramount for the sector's resilience. Since 2020, global healthcare data breach costs have surged by 53.3%. For the 13th consecutive year, healthcare recorded the highest average data breach costs at USD 10.93 million, according to IBM.

What would a Labour government mean for private providers in the UK?

As the UK’s political parties enter the final straight for next Thursday’s general election, the outcome is all but certain, with polling strongly indicating that the Labour Party is set to return to power for the first time since 2010 — at current projections with the largest parliamentary majority in British history.

Intensification of existing hospitals as an alternative to newbuilds 

Europe’s ageing population means capacity in both the hospital and nursing home sectors needs to be expanded over the coming years. But unsupportive regulatory and policy environments and unfavourable economics currently present major barriers to new developments, especially for hospitals. One alternative discussed by speakers at the ‘Investing in health care property’ panel at HBI 2024 is to get more out of existing facilities through ‘intensification’.

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