Long waits for medical treatment in the United Kingdom have prompted a record number of people to seek help overseas, UK Office for National Statistics, or ONS, has reported.

The government's statistics agency said 523,000 people turned their backs on the state-run National Health Service, or NHS, in 2024 to seek treatment overseas. The number was up on the 431,000 who did so in 2023, and much more than the 348,000 recorded in 2022.

Many paid for treatment in nations including India, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Turkiye, instead of waiting for free treatment from the NHS.

With 7.41 million people on NHS waiting lists, the most common procedures carried out overseas were cataract surgery, dentistry, cosmetic surgery, and hip and knee replacements.

Wes Streeting, the UK's health minister, warned people could be putting themselves at risk by seeking treatment overseas because procedures may be done to lower standards than those by the NHS.

"It's appalling hundreds of thousands of taxpayers have been forced to go abroad for medical treatment they should be accessing for free on the NHS," The Telegraph newspaper quoted him as saying.

But Streeting said the Labour Party government, which has been in office for little more than a year after 14 years of Conservative Party rule, is improving the situation it inherited.

"We are overhauling the NHS to put an end to the grossly unfair two-tier system we inherited, where people who can't afford to seek care privately get left behind," he said. "There's a long way to go, but in the first year of this government we've already delivered over 5 million extra appointments and cut waiting lists by 206,000."

Streeting said some people seeking treatment overseas are "being lured" by "cheap cosmetic procedures" that could leave them with "life-changing complications".

But Dennis Reed, from the charity Silver Voices, told The Telegraph many people go overseas as a last resort.

"This is a tragic situation and it is driven by desperation," he said. "People are using their life savings to obtain treatment that they cannot get on the NHS."
Reed said people on "modest incomes" look for alternatives because "they are facing long waits, perhaps in pain, and can't afford to go private (in the UK)".
People waiting for a hip replacement operation, for example, face the choice of waiting in pain for a free NHS operation, paying for a private operation in the UK that could cost $16,000 to $22,000, or paying for an operation in Turkiye costing between $8,000 and $11,000.
And The Guardian newspaper reported on Monday that NHS bosses say the government must invest an extra $4 billion in the NHS or wait times will get longer and hospitals could start rationing care.