A couple reasons for this but the main one is for many a year the NHS was underfunded by the Conservative governments of the 80s and 90s in the hope that it wou

A couple reasons for this but the main one is for many a year the NHS was underfunded by the Conservative governments of the 80s and 90s in the hope that it would crawl into the corner and die so did not/does not have the resources (doctors, nurses, beds, equipment etc) necessary to cope with a growing and aging population. This resulted in waiting lists that for some patients are unacceptable and so people pay to go private to skip the wait.