The Association of British Insurers reported a record £4 billion in health insurance claims processed in 2025. Spire Healthcare posted FY25 revenue of £1.578bn. The Independent Healthcare Providers Network continues to push for greater use of independent providers in NHS delivery — elective surgery, diagnostics, community pathways.
Private healthcare is growing, and that has implications for the clinical labour markets, because NHS providers and independent sector operators are, in many specialties, recruiting from the same experienced candidate pool. Theatres. Diagnostics. Ward nursing. Outpatient care. The radiographer, the scrub nurse, the senior mental health nurse, are visible to both markets simultaneously, and they’re getting approached by both.
What’s less clear is how candidates are actually making their application decisions. Pay is part of it, but research consistently shows it’s certainly not the only variable, and often not the primary one. Working pattern flexibility, management quality, career development, the nature of the caseload all play a role, and different candidates weight them differently.
That means the competitive dynamic between NHS and independent sector isn’t a simple “they pay more, we can’t compete” story. But it does mean that the labour market for experienced clinical staff in high-demand specialties is more contested than headline vacancy figures suggest — because the private sector’s growth is absorbing supply that might otherwise have flowed into NHS roles.
There’s also an interesting wrinkle with the IHPN’s push for independent sector involvement in NHS elective delivery. If that expands, it could simultaneously reduce NHS waiting lists and increase competition for the clinical staff needed to clear them. Both things can be true at once.
The 2025 figures aren’t background context. They’re a signal that the independent sector has crossed into a different weight class. The labour market moved. The employers who’ve moved with it will notice. The ones who haven’t, will.