Health insurance firm rapped over unsubstantiated NHS 'horror stories'
eSmart Media, publishers of www.top10healthinsurance.com, have been ordered by the Advertising Standards Authority not to reproduce a controversial ad on their website which recounted unsubstantiated NHS ‘horror stories’.
The health insurance providers website was headed ‘3 NHS Horror Stories That’ll Make You Think Twice’ and went on to allege the poor treatment of patients, including a quote from Labour MP Ann Clywd which apparently backed up its claims.
Five complainants alleged that the ad contained four misleading claims which exaggerated the benefits of private healthcare; namely: ‘... the core 'care' principle of nursing seems to be disappearing from its practice’, ‘with health insurance you could avoid the risk of infection’, ‘consultants can dedicate more attention to individual patients’ and ‘4 people die of dehydration every day in our hospitals.’
eSmart contended that they only used facts in the article and that none of the claoms were exaggerated, the ASA however took a different view.
In their case summary the ASA said: “We considered that the implied claims about the extent to which the examples represented care under the NHS resulted in the exaggeration of the stated benefits of private healthcare and therefore concluded that the ad was misleading.
“We told eSmart Media to ensure they held robust substantiation to support claims in their ads, and to ensure that any references to the NHS did not use an appeal to fear.”