This was up 27 per cent on the 3.3 billion registered the previous year.

This was partly due to the sharp drop in the peak COVID year of 2020, GIMBE said, but “the overall trend is on the up”.

Three northern regions, Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy and Veneto, account for 93.3 per cent of the “northern pull factor”, GIMBE added in its report on healthcare mobility for 2021.

Six southern regions account for 76.9 per cent of the overall migration: Calabria, Campania, Sicily, Lazio, Puglia and Abruzzo.

ANSA