to be gobsmacked by the efficiency of private healthcare?

[grovel]

I have never used private healthcare before and we have no insurance. Over New Year my left knee "went". I could not straighten it. Very painful. DH called a GP friend (not in our area) who told him that real diagnosis could be weeks after initial visit to our GP (referral to consultant, probable referral to MRI unit, back to consultant etc). If surgery was required I might have to wait weeks after diagnosis. In the meantime I would be on crutches and painkillers. I was prepared to suck this up.
DH wanted immediate diagnosis. He called the local private Orthopaedic practice. Appointment next day. Scan immediately after consultation. Diagnosis immediately after scan. Offer of surgery within 6 days. Price for all of this - £4,100 (initial consultation, scan, surgery, anaesthetist, 5 physio sessions, follow-up consultation etc). We have decided to go ahead. We are lucky that we can afford to (just about - Butlins, not Greece this year, I suppose, and no car upgrade).
Now I love the principles of the NHS and will defend them until Kingdom comes but this experience has got me thinking about how it is organised. Why do I have to see my GP to get anything started? Why do consultants have to correspond with GPs? Does it really cost the NHS less than £4,000 (fully-loaded) to treat my condition (cartilege-related)? Could Landsley even be right about a physician-led service?
I may be spouting nonsense because I am so relieved to be getting resolution to my discomfort.

The reason private healthcare works in the UK (and it has its place) is because it's a luxury, an extra as it should be. It wouldn't and doesn't work as a healthcare system.

Hi grovel, sorry about your knee, sounds a pretty awful experience. You don't say in your post if you did see your own GP or not. You did mention that a GP friend not in your area and thus presumably not familiar with the arrangement of services in your area was the person who predicted the long wait.

It does sound like you were in considerable trouble with it in which case I assume you would have been given priority even in the NHS. In A&E jobs I have had young lads off football and rugby pitches and the like would come in with what you describe and be treated the same day! Not knocking the speed you got your current care but it sounds like you can't really compare it to the NHS care as you didn't try it.

As to why your GP has to always be involved that it to do with 'continuity of care' so they can follow you up in years to come etc. This is why we go to them first and the Consultant writes back. If you had e.g a stomach problem then an operation then years later another stomach problem then the GP would always have that information to refer to and use to help inform the hospital should they need to send you back. The GP is the one person - at the moment who carries all that information in one place- even when you move it goes to the new one so that any ongoing care takes previous stuff into account.

£4000+ sounds a hefty bill for all that efficiency

There are many things that could be improved about the NHS but it is totally, utterly amazing that tomorrow anyone who has posted here could fall seriously ill, be on intensive care for months, spend a couple of years in hospital/rehab then need lifelong care & medication without costing you a penny beyond what you'd already paid in tax (or even if you'd never paid any). You could rack up millions in healthcare costs - some people do - and never have to pay a bill. I'd put up with a hell of a lot of bureaucratic shittiness for that.

It's a real pity people don't understand what they've got in the NHS because it is rapidly being undermined. It is highly unlikely that your children will benefit from the same level of care, free at the point of access. You'll miss it when it's gone.

Exactly anyone. We lived abroad for a long time. The security and safety - and efficiency - of the NHS is amazing. People just don't appreciate what they have.

What Nilgiri says is so true. I have had private health service in the US, and since it is the norm it operates a lot like the NHS. It is well nigh impossible to be seen by a primary care / family doctor/ general practitioner for any acute condition, such as strep throat the day you really need to be seen. Well child visits (pediatrician and not a GP) always featured long waits as very sick children were seen first and appointments were made on a 'cattle call' basis. If your appointment was for 10.10 am, then you would be seen some time before 11.10 if you were lucky. Same went for OB/GYN monthly appointments.

£4,000+ is peanuts compared to the cost of private treatment in the US. Most families pay far more than that for insurance alone, either directly paid by them or taken out of the paycheque. Each procedure comes with a hefty bill even after the insurance pays out.

Surely all that community of care business and writing back and forth should be done away with as records are digitised?

blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-qa-the-boom-and-bust-of-cosmetic-surgery-in-the-uk/8956
The Original OP and all the other pro private posters might want to double check who did the work, was it a qualified person or a plumber or joiner doing a bit of extra work. It would seem from what ch4 found that we might never know!

I agree with mostly and anyone, 2 great posts.

When it was decided I needed an MRI scan for my knee after an injury I was scanned within 48 hours, and that was non urgent.

I dread to think how much the hospital treatment Ds has had in the past 2 years and will likely need for a long time to come would cost privatly either!

I've used my work health insurance on several occasions for me/DD. am very grateful to be able to be seen quickly but am always really on edge in case something unexpected happened- when DD needed an unexpected overnight stay in hosp after treatment, I was on my phone pacing the corridor to ensure it was still going to be covered. Last time I was in they also forgot to feed me twice (another unexpected overnight) and for DDs last treatment, the new private hosp it was carried out in has no overnight facilities so my guess it's a quick ambulance trip to the closest (nhs) A&E in case of emergency!

When my mum had a very complicated leg fracture after a fall, her operation was done on the NHS by the Queen Mother's surgeon, no less! How about that for quality! She was v pleased to be able to tell people her hip had been done by the same person who had 'done' the QM!

Sirzy :o you had be for a while there: mostly and anyone. NICE! (and thank you)

Possibly smallwhitecat there are things the US system does better. But that's not because private healthcare is a better system. I'm sure if we spent 17% of our GDP on healthcare under our current system we'd have an absolutely amazing health system. We spend about half what the Americans do. My point is it's not efficient and certanly not equitable.

How can you be "gobsmacked" by the efficiency of a service you have used once?

Try going private every time for everyhting and you may find that is isn't as impressive as you thought.

YABU to use the word gobsmacked.... did someone actually smack your gob? I thought not.

Private healthcare is fine..until you become really ill...then they are not so keen to treat. Waay to expensive. So in the UK, they do deals until your money runs out then it's back to the NHS.
Private health care is no respecter of need. It's very short term payability. And if you can't pay, then sod you.

Also I forgot to say that if you had walked into a good NHS hospital A&E with a knee that has "suddenly went" and you were unable to walk properly or straighten your knee, do you really think that they would have turned you away and told you to go to your GP for a referall? They would not have done. They would have dealt with you there and then.

It happens all the time: someone turns up in A&E having had an accident of a serious condition and they get patched up in A&E and then refferred on to fracture clinic etc.

It a bit rich to criticise the NHS for being inefficient when you didn't even try to seek help from them. Your GP friend is an arse and he should have told you to go to A&E. You could have spent £4k on your hols insteead and new car.

When my daughter came out of her operation at a London hospital she was wheeled by a porter across the car park to the childrens ward. What a bloody farce.

Agree with wheremymilk re consultants. A massive percentage of the consultants who work in the NHS also do private work. This is OUTSIDE of their NHS working hours. There's a minority of consultants who do only private work, mainly aesthetic surgeons.

Also agree with NHS being best for emergencies. I've worked in both the NHS and private sector and we have to be picky with what patients we can take for elective surgery,ie not those with certain heart problems. We DO have HDU beds here but not ITU. Should a patient need to be ventilated they would have to go to an NHS hospital.

Obviously I am talking from my experience, its not to say all private hospitals have the same facilities as we do here.

I am a big fan of the NHS, both in principal and in practice.

Having said that, I utterly luxuriated in the awesomeness of private medicine quickly and efficiently fixing my daughter's hearing where the NHS were humming and hawing and deciding to leave it 6 months "in case it improved" . I understand why they have guidelines to wait, and I understand that perhaps at about 6 yrs old her hearing may well have improved of its own accord, but my god it was good to be able to say "actually, fuck that, my 3 yr old needs to be able to hear NOW, please", and a week later she could.

Similarly, my son had been faffing around on generic antibiotics, the odd steroids, antihistamines almost since the day he was born. They were treating his symptoms, one doctor at a time. No continuity, and no one interested in rolling up their sleeves and working out exactly what the problem was because it wasn't a BIG SCARY FLASHING LIGHTS problem - it was a grumblingly snotty, eczema-y child who would probably grow out of it. Went private. Child now symptom free. Bliss.

Neither of these experiences detract from the awesomeness of the NHS, but I feel extremely fortunate to have access to both services.

Notthefullshilling - we are not talking about 'cosmetic surgery' on this thread - we are talking about treatment that you would normally get on the NHS 'free' but due to waiting times and bureaucracy people have decided to opt for private.

I think the private ENT consultant we saw for DS as great he then performed surgery on DS under NHS . Perfectly happy with his qualifications thank you .

The need for cosmectic surgery is all together different from what is being posted here.

I think both have their place, no-one is suggesting replacing the NHS with the private.

There is a middle ground between the inefficiency of the NHS and the expensive, exclusive private system in the US. I live in Belgium, where we have a fantastically efficient public healthcare system. You pay contributions from your salary, just like in the UK. When you see a doctor, you pay for the appointment in cash then submit a paper to your "mutuelle" (the people who manage your healthcare - you can pick whichone you go with from around 6/7 different ones), and you get reimbursed for around 80% of the costs within 7 working days.

In practice, this means it costs you around ?5-10 to visit a normal GP and a little more to visit a specialist. If you need to see a specialist, you can make an appointment directly yourself - no need for referrals. You can usually get a GP appointment the same day, and a specialist appointment within a week if you're flexible on times/dates. To get things like blood tests or X-rays or MRIs done, you make an appointment directly with the service responsible at your nearest hospital. Again, this can usually be done pretty quickly. Hospital costs for these things are done at the time of your appointment (you have a card that they put in a machine) and you pay the difference. Again, this is usually only ?5-10 for most treatments.

If you have to be hospitalised, you usually have a special insurance from your employer that covers special hospital costs (like ambulance, private room, etc), but with the standard insurance that everyone has, you're covered 100% for most procedures and that includes a shared room (not a ward - they don't exist here) and the doctor's fees etc.

The whole system is seriously so much more efficient than the NHS and treatment is far superior. It might seem like we pay for things that are free on the NHS, but in reality when you consider prescription charges etc in the UK, it probably ends up about the same. And here, at least if I have a problem/emergency like the OP mentioned, I would be able to be seen quickly without having to fork out £4,100 to go privately.

My DDad is currently in a lovely NHS hospital thanks to private healthcare and their lack of care.