NHS PAYS OUT MILLIONS TO TREAT PATIENTS ABROAD

THOUSANDS of NHS patients are being sent abroad as record waiting lists hold up routine operations.

- Giles Sheldrick

Surgery such knee and hip replacement, and even cancer therapy is being farmed out as far away as the US - at a cost of millions of pounds.

NHS figures reveal a total 5,330 patients have travelled to clinics across Europe since 2020.

Stretched as The arrangement has cost British taxpayers £4.5million in less than three years, with NHS patients being treated in France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Bulgaria.

John O'Connell, the chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said "Taxpayers yesterday: will rightly be asking earth these why on treatments couldn't be done at home.

"With NHS resources already stretched, health bosses will be expected to provide justification for sending patients overseas. The health service must ensure it's

open and transparent with taxpayers on how it funds treatments." Official data, which was obtained by the Daily Express, is likely to raise fresh questions about the ability of the NHS to adequately treat patients as it enters the most difficult winter of its 74-year history.

The strategy of having patients treated abroad comes under the spotlight as the waiting list in England tops a record seven million people.

The total in August of those waiting to start planned NHS treatment was up from July's 6.8 million - the longest queue since records began in 2007. One in 18 had been in line for more than a year.

The Daily Express used Freedom of Information (FOI) laws to ask health bosses how many patients had travelled abroad for treatment on the NHS, to where, for what reason and at what cost.

NHS England [NHSE] confirmed that 3,400 patients left the UK in 2020, with 1,130 in 2021. The total for this year up to October 10 was 800.