Good health service puts £10,000 on price of a home

Around one in seven Britons (15%) are willing to pay an extra £10,000 for a home in a good NHS catchment area, according to new research from Combined Insurance.

At a time when NHS hospitals have been criticised for not meeting key basic hygiene standards, Combined Insurance asked a representative sample of more than 2,000 adults if they were moving house tomorrow how much would they be willing to pay in order to live in a good NHS catchment area.

More than one in four people (27%) are happy to spend an extra £6,000 to live in a neighbourhood with good healthcare, and one in two (48%) are willing to spend an extra £3,000.

Yorkshire tops the poll with almost one in four people (22%) willing to fork out an extra £10,000 or more to be in a good NHS catchment area. In contrast, Londoners are the least likely to splash out, with one in three not even willing to spend an extra £1,000 (35%). Here, the price of housing and the cost of living in the Capital seem to be taking their toll.

Paying extra for a home in a good catchment area is common across all income and social groups – one in ten less affluent people (10%) say they would find £10,000 to live in a good NHS catchment area – despite this representing a significantly higher proportion of their income.

Nigel Brittle, Director at Combined Insurance commented: “This research suggests there is a clear demand for good local healthcare and people are willing to spend thousands of pounds to be in a good catchment area for treatment. As a leading community insurer, Combined Insurance is committed to ensuring that access to good healthcare doesn’t cost the earth.

“For example, Combined’s new Care for Cancer Plan offers a low cost, comprehensive range of benefits including cancer screening, cancer diagnosis and access to approved cancer drugs that are not available on the NHS for free”.