Fewer patients paid out of their own pocket for private hospital treatment last year as National Health Service waiting times fell and the economy began to falter, Laing and Buisson, the healthcare analysts, said yesterday.

The number of patients who pay for themselves, rather than being covered by insurance, dropped to about 16 per cent of private hospitals' revenues - down from a peak of about 22.5 per cent in the early part of the decade and the first fall for several years, the analysts said.