Would you pay for private A and E?

[Albertslittletie]

I’ve had three horrible A and E visits that have left me with PTSD and health anxiety. I’ve got private insurance with BUPA but I was thinking, if there was a way to pay for private A and E, I would.

i hate myself for thinking that because im just falling into the Tory plan but is the NHS ever going to recover? I don’t know.

would private hospitals take the strain and wait times down for regular hospitals or would they just start reducing funding for them and make them shit and then healthcare becomes worse for those who can’t afford it?

curious for thoughts.

All of the things you've listed should pretty much never be in A&E anyway.

GP / practice nurse/ walk in center/ Pharmacist or even just wait and self manage at home and they will eventually get better are likely to be much more appropriate (obviously all conditions can have complications but since these didn't require an actual A&E I'm going to assume they didn't).

I mean I'm glad people aren't using NHS A&E for these, but (you did suggest that was the alternative) when people misuse it and then complain about the wait times it always seems a bit ridiculous.

Nail on the head here.

Private hospitals don't always have the best trained people.

An A and E in a general hospitals can call down specialists form any service. Private hospitals might only have one Dr on 'cover' often from an NHS hospital.

The specialists who work in private hospitals also work in the NHS and are only at private hospitals for part of their day.

They don't HAVE to have medical staff or trained nurses, although it is rare not to have some.

One of the reasons you have to wait in A and E after triage is often because they are calling a specialist in.

In a private hospital the specialist might be an hour away.

From what I’ve seen in Sydney, they aren’t used for your life or death issues, they’re more for the things that need to be seen relatively urgently (limb injuries etc), need specialist services that might not be available at a Dr (X Ray for example and basically for things that can’t really wait but probably aren’t going to kill you.
For children it’s ideal as there’s way less waiting.

How would you feel if there was a Bronze/Silver/Gold package for your private treatment? Suppose you need an ambulance, should you get an NHS one? As has been said above Where would the private bit stop and the free bit start?

There are NHS Urgent Care centres as well.
The reason private urgent care centres exist as a business is they treat pretty simple things. Kid comes in with a painful ankle, parents say it is broken. You examine, x-ray, and then give advice RICE and compression bandage if it is a sprain, or boot or cast if it is a break. Its really very easy medicine.
In amongst that you get people with sore throats, eye infections and similar that are easily treated.
Anything more complicated you send them to an NHS A and E.
I know they have Drs on site, but this could all be done by nurses, it is not complex medicine.

No, I wouldn’t.
I think there is no need for this, it’s about routine system being overstretched and this is resulted in A&E problems. We need more GPs, access to GPs until 8 pm on the evening and on Saturday mornings, better equipped GP surgeries and these will free up A&E enormously.

@NoisySnailSo it is more a private urgent care centre than a private A and E

Not quite as they have access to theatres and surgeons so they also do general surgery like appendectomy’s and strangulated hernia’s. The ones I’m familiar with also have an on-call system with certain orthopaedic surgeons that have private rights at the private hospitals, so breaks that need to be surgically managed as opposed to being casted can be done within hours in theatre there. Obviously casting is done on the spot as opposed to slabbing and on-referral to that weeks fracture clinic as we would do in public A&E. Also, as I stated earlier in examples one particular private hospital has a specialised cardiac lab and consultants that matches any public system (permanently staffed around clock with people who share time between the public/private systems), so I’d pick them over a public A&E for a heart attack any day, our ambo’s will happily drop you there. But sure, these places certainly don’t have chopper pads for trauma, that’s not their remit.

Just for clarity- are you referring to (I assume the Australian) the situation in the country you work in or in the UK?

In the UK, if you have a life threatening emergency such as a heart attack, you should always go to an NHS A&E for emergency diagnosis and life saving treatment. If you have private healthcare you might request to be transferred for follow up treatments and / or surgery, which may include urgent treatment and surgery. I don't think it would be safe to advise anyone otherwise.

@VerityUnreasonble I thought it was obvious I was referring to my country, as when I described it initially I was told by another poster that what I described was the same as urgent care in UK. I detailed how it was not. I do understand the UK system as worked in A&E there for many years also (ironically we all went over there back then as it was an ‘easier’ system than ours🤣).

The OP doesn’t ask… ‘would you pay for private A+E if it existed’ though which you’d know if you’d bothered to read her OP.

If there was such a thing, and I doubt there ever would be in the private sector, as it would involve too many specialists to make the service safe. Even if it did exist, it would be so expensive the vast majority of people would not be able to fund using it. Having had a privately funded (via medical insurance ) diagnosis, I know how much things like scans and blood tests, consultants appts cost. If I didn’t have insurance I wouldn’t have been able to have a diagnosis in a week.

If private A+E existed, I would certainly pay for it. But, it doesn't! Not locally anyway. At the moment, I am stuck paying for a NHS which is broken out of my NI and then again privately via medical insurance. I'd rather just pay more through my taxes for a system that I could access.

There's no reason why a private hospital can't have emergency care and I agree that there is puzzlingly little provision in the UK. American TV frequently shows the functioning of private emergency medicine!

Some urgent care centres in London but these are not full-on emergency departments, not open 24 hours, won't be able to treat major trauma, etc. eg hje.org.uk/blog/private-urgent-care-centre-when-you-need-immediate-attention/
Sometimes wonder what the very rich do. Are the Beckhams and oligarchs down at C&W A&E with the rest of us if they have crushing chest pain? It somehow seems unlikely.

I think the practical privatisation is already happening to a certain degree which is private "everything-that-should-happen-before-you-need-A&E"

A&E is completely over whelmed because of failures both at the beginning and end of the cycle. So at GP / social care level.

So if everyone who could afford it used private carers / care homes / GPs / online pharmacies / dermatology / allergy / blood testing etc etc then that takes pressure off the NHS versions which, in theory, allows all the preventative medicine to happen again which keeps the majority of people out of A&E - thus ensuring a better service when you need it.

That would be my model - insurance for all
the non emergency medicine - proper, available GP services and focus NHS budget on hospitals and A&E.

@hopsalong The King Edward VII etc, why couldn’t A&E function there? The best anaesthetists there etc. Dubai & Singapore manage well, there’s a super wealthy demographic so demand there. The public hospitals also function efficiently in Singapore and there are no drunks etc at weekends & wait times always low. Makes UK system feel third world. Kids seen within the hour. I predict it will come to London.

Sorry Hopping, it was only that the post you replied to was very similar to a number of posts in response to people saying we have private A&Es in the UK. I had images of people deciding they could rock up at some of the hospitals (with very good private cardiac centers) mid heart attack, which would not be safe here! I'm sure you know people often don't follow posts and replies through the thread.

Absolutely I'd pay for it

@FusionChefGeoff Private insurance automatically adds up to 10% administration costs of healthcare.

I'm in France. The way it works here - apart from the fact that GP appointments are easy to get AND preventative care is much more prevalent - so demand is probably a lot less overall - is that there are various private clinics in our city who deal with specific traumas. Round the corner we have a trauma clinic which deals with suspected fractures and other accidents, and there are several others through the city. So that helps take the pressure off the main hospital A&Es. When my kids have broken bones or need Xrays, I just take them there rather than clogging up the hospital A&E.

The clinics are private but most of the cost is reimbursed so the out-of-pocket cost is very affordable.

I did a first aid course recently, run by a fireman (the pompiers run their own ambulance / emergency service here). He was complaining that he often has to wait up to 45 minutes to drop patients off at our big public A&E since Covid, whereas it used to be 5 minutes max. I just kept my head down...

The Prince Philip was once admitted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary , don't know what he ate though 🤔.
Maybe hospitals have secret area for Royal patients .
I do vaguely remember Madonna being in Salisbury Hospital after a fall off her horse .

@hopsalong private A and E is very expensive to provide. In the US there is no decent state alternative so the providers can charge the high cost it takes. In the UK not enough people would pay the very high cost to make it financially viable.

I hadn't thought about celebs etc! I had a similar experience 3 weeks ago. 9 hours of moaning and writhing in pain and throwing up into cardboard bowls before I was seen and given painkillers. Dodgy gallbladder removed. It was all an awful experience. I would happily have paid to be seen quicker and treated with some kindness and dignity.

How many accidents and emergencies are now actually in A&E? In England, it's mostly full of people with poorly managed chronic conditions who can't get appointments!

Manage this better and A&E would no longer be the kitchen sink of last medical resort. Private A&E would be a waste of time if the general system didn't have the problems it does.

Celebrities presumably only go for Genuine emergencies in which case you would be taken to a cubicle.

Previously went to Clementine Churchill who had a private A&E.

Yes, it did, I tried to get my GP to send me there when I had appendicitis. Sadly I think it shut a few years ago.

As PPs have said, HCA have urgent treatment centres that will treat some things you'd go to A&E for. I've had various inpatient and outpatient treatments at the Princess Grace and it's not a wild west of maverick doctors, they have some excellent consultants (and an ICU).

Give me that any day over the NHS which truly scares me on occasions, not to mention having to wait for hours on end. (My consultant friends all have private healthcare which is quite telling).