Yes, it's not opt-out, just additional coverage or the use of private facilities. Apparently about £1k per capita[1], I'd suspect a lot of that is probably dent

Yes, it's not opt-out, just additional coverage or the use of private facilities. Apparently about £1k per capita[1], I'd suspect a lot of that is probably dental due to a huge shortage of NHS dentists. Historically private healthcare here was just about fancier rooms, better food, etc... Now it's often "the NHS said I need to wait 6 months to get this procedure, if I pay I can get it next week". A lot of the time with the same doctors and same facilities as if you went NHS. In general, if you weren't waiting a long time for NHS healthcare, people were happy with it: five or so years back I worked for an American company that offered private healthcare as standard, even in the UK, and the healthcare company offered you £50 a day while you got NHS treatment rather than actually using their services while you had coverage, as it was obviously much cheaper for them, and everyone I knew took that deal every time. Increasingly this is less true though, a decade and a half of being slowly throttled, then Covid, and you can feel that everyone is rushed and stretched to breaking point. [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health-expenditure-by-country https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health...