Health and medical tourism-a growing business

Health and medical tourism is a growing business. Increasingly UK patients are opting to go as far as Brazil, South Africa and Malaysia for cosmetic surgery. But growth is not restricted to "o" pinch no tuck holiday ". According to the annual survey of Norwich Union healthcare index health Nation, nearly half of patients travelling to another country for treatment are doing it for large operations, such as cardiac surgery and hip replacement.

An estimated 50000 British travel abroad for surgery private annually (International Passenger surgery 2005). But what is the attraction? Why are people willing to put his health into the hands of surgeons from another country?

The main driver is obviously cost. By traveling to Belgium for treatment, a patient can save 40% on the cost of going in particular in the United Kingdom: choosing to South Africa, a savings of 50% is possible. and, by choosing to countries like Croatia, Poland and India, saving more than 60% can be expected.

For cosmetic surgery, low cost, the ability to combine recovery with relaxing holiday and perhaps have surgery hung to friends made popular holiday destinations such as Spain and Tunisia are attracting patients UK.

For elective surgery, there are other factors play a role. There is no doubt that real or perceived risks of MRSA and hospital acquired infection in the United Kingdom, some patients have convinced that they will be "safer" in a hospital abroad. Data published by the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System2 show that the proportion of resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria is certainly top pair in the United Kingdom (44.5% in 2002) than in countries such as Belgium (19.2%), Czech Republic (6.2%) and Netherlands (1.0%). But that does not show that the incidence of hospital acquired MRSA infection.

A significant trend is growing part of medical tourism market to be taken by health care providers "in development". Dental tourism is growing in Hungary with people moving to dental implants in 25% of the costs of UK. Countries like Croatia, Poland and the Czech Republic are actively market their services to patients UK and India can become a major supplier of medical tourism. A study of the Confederation of Indian industry and McKinsey estimated medical tourism could be worth £ 1.21bn until 2012. The Indian Government has created a system for fast-track visas Indian doctors and hospital groups see a huge potential market for their services. Year 150000 patients from abroad visited India for the treatment and the number is increasing by 15% per year.

The internet has played a key role in expanding treatment options for private patients in the United Kingdom. Similarly that the British Internet shop for consumer products, "applicants treatment" are using the Internet to research treatment options to compare the costs of the United Kingdom and abroad. Developed in response to patients who want more information about the options abroad and overseas suppliers wishing to promote their services to the United Kingdom public dedicated web sites, such as treatment Abroad (http://www.treatmentabroad.net/).