Insured healthcare reached new heights in Q2 as Healthcode revealed that PMI invoice volumes grew by nearly 8% year-on-year, following growth of almost 7% in Q1. The UK’s official clearing organisation processed 3.2 million invoices for private healthcare providers over the three-month period worth around £1.5 billion.
For the second Quarter running, invoice volumes exceeded one million in each month, bringing the total to 6.3 million for the year to date. Most invoices in Q2 were for outpatient care which was up 8.5% compared with 2025 but invoices for admitted care also represented year-on-year growth of 2.7%. This was due to an increase in day cases (up 3.8% year-on-year) although inpatient invoice volumes were down slightly.
Healthcode’s invoice data provides a reliable measure of the state of the healthcare market because private hospitals and more than 70% of practitioners, practices and clinics use its secure Clearing Service to charge for insured patients. The data also gives valuable insights into episode settings, specialties and regions.
Richard Aris, Healthcode’s Director of Strategic Partnerships and External Affairs, said: “After we reported strong year-on-year growth in PMI volumes in Q1, our data shows the sector has built on this momentum over the last three months. The record level of activity confirms the importance of private sector capacity and high quality provision at a time of rising healthcare need.”
Here are the headlines from Healthcode’s analysis of PMI invoice activity in Q2 2026:
Treatment settings
Most PMI invoices processed by Healthcode (around 2 million) came from non-hospital sources (clinics, private practices and practitioners) while hospitals accounted for around one million.
The total invoice volume for outpatient care was 2.9 million in Q2 and exceeded one million in June alone. This represented growth of 8.5% compared with 2025. The total volume for admitted care was 281,000 with day cases accounting for 78%. Day case volumes grew by 3.8% year-on-year while inpatient volumes fell by just over 1%.
Specialties
Of the top ten hospital specialties, six recorded lower invoice volumes compared with Q2 2025, including Orthopaedics although this remains the largest hospital specialty with 191,000 invoices. Pathology/Haematology saw the largest year-on-year fall of 7.9%. Radiology continued to bounce back strongly after a quiet 2025 with 151,000 invoices, representing year-on-year growth of 30.2%. Oncology and Cardiology were the other two hospital specialties to record year-on-year growth (of 11.8% and 2.4% respectively) while Gastroenterology saw no significant change.
By contrast, eight of the top ten non-hospital specialties saw year-on-year growth in Q2 with Gastroenterology up by 15.1% and Obstetrics and Gynaecology up 12.2%. Physiotherapy remains the largest non-hospital specialty with 386,000 invoices, up 5.2% year-on-year. Radiology (down 14.9%) and Psychotherapy (down 10.1%) were the two specialties to record a year-on-year fall in Q2.
Countries and regions
In the first half of 2026, total volumes (hospital and non-hospital) grew across all the UK nations, with Northern Ireland up 11.2% year-on-year. Wales were a close second (11.1%) while there were year-on-year increases in England and Scotland of 7.2% and 6% respectively.
London has the largest share of activity but invoice volumes in all but one of the English regions were up more than 5% year-on-year with the East Midlands and North West leading the way (up 18.1% and 14.3% respectively). The exception was the West Midlands where invoice volumes were down 2.8%.
