A 59-year-old woman has described how she flew to Lithuania for a hip replacement after enduring months of excruciating pain on the NHS waiting list, comparing the sensation to 'having broken glass in my hip'.
Agony and Delays
Nicky Hatton, from Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, had been suffering from osteoarthritis for three years before an X-ray last September confirmed her hip was 'bone on bone'. Despite being referred for a replacement, she was told to use a walking stick and faced a wait of at least another year. The mother-of-two, who works as a support officer for a homeless charity and cares for her disabled adult son, said the pain was unbearable.
'It was like somebody had put broken glass in my hip, that's how it felt. I mean, I've had twins and I know how painful that was, and it was up there,' she said. 'I was swallowing co-codamol like, as soon as I was allowed another one, I was having another one. I got to the point where I wasn't walking anywhere… I just piled on the weight. It just really got me down.'
Medical Tourism Surge
After four months of waiting, she had a home visit for a pain-relieving injection and was told she would likely not get the operation for 12 to 18 months. Desperate, she explored private options in the UK, quoted between £20,000 and £25,000, but found a clinic in Kaunas, Lithuania, through a Facebook group offering the procedure for £8,600. She travelled there in April 2026 and has since made a remarkable recovery.
'It's a million times different. It's like night and day. I get up in the morning, I'm up and down the stairs and I'm only 13 weeks out from the op,' she said. 'It really affected my mood. And I don't think I realised until after the op, how much it had affected my mood.'
Her story comes as data reveals a surge in Britons travelling abroad for medical treatment. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated that 523,000 UK residents went overseas for healthcare in 2024, up from 431,000 in 2023 and 348,000 in 2022. Private hospital admissions in the UK also hit a record high of 953,000 in 2025, according to the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN), with much of the increase driven by employer-funded private medical insurance.
NHS Waiting List Pressures
The NHS elective waiting list in England has risen again, standing at 7.3 million appointments in May 2026, up from 7.22 million in April. Officials attribute the pressure to heatwaves, which they say are 'now putting the NHS under just as much pressure as winter'. The waiting list for trauma and orthopaedics, including hip replacements, saw 60% of patients treated within 18 weeks, up 4% since July 2024.
Nicky criticised the state of the health service: 'There are not enough doctors, not enough nurses, not enough money going into NHS hospitals. They can't possibly facilitate all of the care to all of the people that need it because there's no infrastructure to do it.'
Government Response
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: 'Nobody should be forced to go private or travel overseas for healthcare. We've cut the overall waiting list by 340,000 since July 2024, and more people are getting hip replacements and similar treatments within 18 weeks of being referred. We know there is more work to do, but through record funding and harnessing the latest technology, we will make sure people get safe, timely care, free at the point of use.'
