The healthcare stocks thriving as the world goes private

After listening to many tapes of nursery rhymes in recent years, it is not hard to see them as sly commentaries on the social conditions of the day. One that caught the ear was “Miss Polly Had a Dolly”, which at one point goes: “He [the doctor] wrote on a paper for a pill, pill, pill. I'll be back in the morning with my bill, bill, bill". While clearly from a time before the National Health Service (NHS), many people these days will recognise the sentiment, if not necessarily empathising with the patient itself.

An updated nursery rhyme might involve a zoom call with a private GP. In that respect, one of the enduring trends triggered by the pandemic, catalysed by an NHS that is clearly flailing, is that patient numbers for private medical services are undergoing their biggest boom in 20 years. Indeed, the Association of British Insurers said recently that the use of private health insurance had reached its highest level in three decades of data collection. This translates into annual growth of 7 per cent, with workplace claims slightly outpacing those from individual policyholders.