Health, Wellness and Tourism: healthy tourists, healthy business ...

Data regarding levels of training of orthopaedic surgeons in the UK was obtained from
professional profiles accessible from Spire’s own website (Spire Healthcare, 2009).
Data regarding Spire’s surgical success rates were obtained from published data from both
Spire’s own publications and those of external monitoring bodies. Apollo were able to
provide these details directly. The recovery times, infection rates and complication rates from
both Apollo and Spire were compared directly.
Patient satisfaction (including cultural issues)
Three patients, who had previously undergone hip replacements in India, were interviewed
via email and telephone correspondence to determine their satisfaction with treatment
provided and the overall experience of care in India. Semi-structured interviews were
performed.
Data regarding patient satisfaction with treatment received at Spire was collected from Spire’s
website (Spire Healthcare, 2009), the Independent Healthcare Advisory Service (IHAS,
2009), the Welsh Independent Hospitals Association (WIHA, 2009) and the Scottish
Independent Hospitals Association (SIHA, 2009). The published data provided information
on satisfaction with the hospital, staff and willingness to recommend treatment. This data was
then compared with the data from Apollo to highlight discrepancies and allow conclusions to
be drawn.
Results
Market determination
The survey looked at participants’ views on whether they would travel abroad for medical
treatment. On initial questioning (Question 9a) 57% of participants said that they would
either probably or definitely consider travelling abroad for treatment in the future. India was
the most popular non-Western country to be chosen for the participant’s destination with 31%
choosing it as one of their ideal locations. When asked whether they would take out a health
insurance policy where foreign treatment was provided (in question 13a), a slightly lower
proportion suggested they would, with 53% saying that they probably or definitely would take
out cover if premiums were cheaper as a result.
Figure 1- Comparison of overall answers from question 9a and question 13a