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Daily Record
Daily Record
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Scots turning to private healthcare to beat soaring NHS wait times

Increasing numbers of Scots are paying for private healthcare because of NHS waiting times. More than a third of hip and knee replacements last year were paid for by patients at a cost of around £12,000 on average.

For some people, this charge will have been covered by existing health insurance or by savings. Many others will have scrimped and saved to pay for a procedure that is available for free on the NHS – but only if you’re prepared to wait.

If the choice is suffering through each day with poor mobility, or taking a loan out to pay for a life-changing procedure, many people will opt for the latter. Anas Sarwar raised this issue with Nicola Sturgeon at Holyrood yesterday.

The Scottish Labour leader said some Scots were remortgaging their homes in order to go private. He claimed it was proof that a two-tier health system already existed in Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon was right to respond that many of the issues facing the NHS are caused by the impact of a brutal
two-year pandemic. But that won’t be much comfort to the many Scots who simply can’t afford to consider going private.

The NHS is, in principle, free at the point of need. And many of its services remain the envy of the world.

But when it comes to non-emergency procedures, the process can be long and frustrating. The situation cannot be allowed to get worse than it already is.

Access to healthcare shouldn’t rely on money.

Beware of the bank scammers

A staggering 70,000 Brits may have been victims of the cruel iSpoof telephone scam we report on today. Crooks posing as representatives of banks including Barclays, Santander, HSBC and TSB fleeced unwitting account holders out of their savings.

Victims are believed to have had lost tens of millions of pounds. Arbroath man Rhys Tapley told how a fraudster cheated him out of £3000 by posing as someone from the Royal Bank of Scotland in a similar con.

These crooks often successfully target the elderly but as Rhys – who is 35 – shows, we are all potential victims of the scammers. Everyone should take care when passing on their financial details over the phone.

Contact your bank if you have any doubts at all over who you are speaking to. Don’t give these
unscrupulous criminals a chance.

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