Dear Surrey Circle Health Reader,

Thank you for your attention to my monthly blog here, which I trust and hope is gaining some traction by now with regular readers – Don’t forget that you can get Health News directly into your inbox each month by pressing the button below! Doesn’t it feel good to feel a little safer out & about? Have you had a beer in a pub garden as yet? Pandemic hospitalisation now down from just 4 months ago in January by a whopping 96%!! 

As it would appear that the U.K. is getting this awful virus under control it’s well worth nonetheless contemplating some quite stark health related headlines reported within recent weeks;

• Reportedly there has been a 55% increase in people waiting for NHS surgery in the past year. 
  
• BBC News reported (15th April) that 4.7 million are currently waiting for NHS operations, being the most since records began in 2007, NHS England figures show.
  
• Insurer Aetna International’s recent annual survey found that the majority of employees said that they considered that the coronavirus pandemic has heightened employer’s responsibility for their workforce’s physical health (89%), mental health (84%), with access to quality healthcare at 87%. However, rather soberingly it was also noted that just 31% felt that their own employers were actually adequately covering these health benefits. 
  
• Cover magazine reported (9th April) that the Association of British Insurers (ABI) finds that 60% of small-to-medium businesses (SME’s)(from research carried out in October of last year) acknowledge that providing health & well-being benefits has a high impact on supporting the productivity of their company.  

In light of these ever increasing headlines just what have the Private Medical Insurance companies been doing in response? Some more recent headlines, offering some much needed reassurance;

• Moneyfacts announced (14th April) a 25% increase in PMI (Private Medical Insurance) products rated 5 stars compared to 2020.
  
• Many insurers have been responding to what is being referred to as ‘long COVID’, rather than marginalising it as a chronic condition thereby falling outside of the parameters of Private Healthcare, they’ve been busy promptly rolling out comprehensive aftercare programs, covering their clients long after the patient has been discharged from hospital. 
  
• Eager to attract & retain both individual as well as corporate business, insurers are as ‘keen as mustard’ to offer competitive premiums this year. 

If this news letter has stirred you, currently insured or not, please drop your details onto the contact form using the button below and we’ll be in contact shortly. Until June then continue to enjoy the gradual lockdown lifting, however please continue to do so mindfully, carefully and cautiously.

Kind regards
Daniel