A recent report from the Reform think thank suggests that UK households spend an average of £1,200 a year on private health care. This amounted to nearly £30 billion in 2007.
While much of this spending reflects the needs of families caring for disabled or elderly relatives, undermining the notion that the NHS remains a 'free' service, a significant proportion is spent by people in need of treatment being forced into the private sector, frustrated with the limitations and inadequacies of a centrally administered NHS.
The spending on private health care illustrates the reality that people are beginning to vote with their feet, the last option left to them when both political parties seem determined to preserve a crippled and failing public health service.