Medical Tourism Treatment Abroad Set to Boom
A new trend has been identified and it makes for quite startling reading: increasing numbers of Brits are picking up their passports and heading abroad, not on holiday, but for medical treatment.
This rapidly growing trend for taking ailments abroad was highlighted at the recent World Travel 
Market at ExCeL London, where companies specializing in offering treatment abroad, ranging from cosmetic dentistry top hip replacements and everything in between, underlined the hard facts. In excess of 200,000 people are predicted to travel abroad over the next three years, seeking out alternatives to an increasingly beleaguered NHS.
This tallies with findings from The Treatment Abroad Medical Tourism Survey 2007, the first of its kind, it revealed that over 50,000 people travelled abroad for treatment in 2006, and spent £161 million on medical tourism.
Around 50 countries are offering bargain priced medical attention which can shave off about 50% on equivalent private costs in this country even after flights and accommodation are factored into the package, the Medical Tourism Survey 2007 revealed that India, Hungary and Turkey are amongst the most popular medical tourism destinations for UK patients whilst other option include Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Malta, Korea, Bulgaria, Latvia, Bolivia and Argentina.
Dentistry is the most popular service with cosmetic surgery coming a close second. The rise in popularity of medical tourism is largely to with the excessive waiting times being faced by beleaguered NHS waiting list patients in addition to the escalating costs of domestic treatment in the West. Just as the rising cost of living is prompting many Brits to emigrate overseas in search of a lower cost of living and better lifestyle, the high price of medical treatment at home has spawned a new travel trend for treatment abroad.
Dentistry work done abroad is significantly cheaper for example - £2,000 for a tooth implant in England compared to £665 in Hungary. Growth in the industry was 25% in 2006 and it is anticipated that will be up to 84% this year, with patients prepared to travel wherever they need to: long haul to Australia and Asia and South America or as near as Belgium.
It is expected that a secondary property market will naturally evolve from this trend, that of the combined trip where the impact of medical treatment is softened by a holiday, leading to rental properties being needed in order to accommodate patients during their recuperation. The only sticking point for the industry so far has been around matters of insurance, with traditional travel and medical insurance not covering these kinds of trips. However, industry insiders widely anticipate that this gap is set to be addressed in the very near future.
