Most people don’t need reminding about the cost-of-living crunch: food, petrol, bills and transport all provide a daily reminder that prices are going up. But today’s energy price cap rise – lifting by almost £700 – provides a headline example of the increasing costs of essential goods.. Alongside it, the National Insurance hike (a 2.5 percentage point rise split between employers and employees) and an average council tax rise of 3.5 per cent both kick in too.
But what about the essential services that are supposedly ‘free’? It seems these are getting expensive too. This week the Private Healthcare Information Network released its data on the number of NHS patients who are paying out of pocket to access private healthcare, due in large part to the long waiting lists (which existed before the pandemic and have worsened since).
Numbers are rising significantly.
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