To go to NHS appointment at private hospital when obese

[user1469053841]

About a month ago I went to an NHS GP about a gyny issue and he refereed me to a consultant. Won't say what it is to maintain anonymity but it isn't motivated by fertility and it isn't immediately urgent or life threatening.

Couple of weeks ago I was offered an appointment on next Monday (way sooner than I'd expected) at a private hospital but as an NHS patient. On the phone they asked me for my height and weight to see if I met criteria. I gave the weight I thought I was (thinking that they might think it was too much) and they offered me the appointment. I didn't ~lie - I just hadn't actually weighed myself for ages.

I weighed myself today for the first time in ages and I'm slightly more than what I said on the phone. the issue is - I may be wrong as they never said - but I'm assuming the benchmark is BMI 30, and the weight I said on phone gives me 29.5, and weight I am is more like 30.5.

What shall I do?? I might be kidding myself but I don't think I look obese - overweight but nor obese. Will they weigh me when I get there?? If so will they refuse to see me or worse charge me hundreds I can't afford for a consultant appointment?? I don't know what to do! Any help or prior experience with this kind of thing appreciated.

PS i am obviously not proud of being obese and I am horrified now I realise how bad the situation is and motivated to change so please no lecturing.

Luna I have no experience of private healthcare. I was merely relating what happened to my friend in a Sheffield private hospital.

Unfortunately OH and DD have had plenty of experience in NHS hospitals and all the care they have received has been excellent.

Private hospitals usually only do elective surgery. Most do not have consultants on site. They have a resident medical officer - a junior doctor who works 24/7 with a week on week off. The elective surgery on well patients is much, lower risk so less likely to need medical support than an elderly person with a broken hip. Very few have critical care support and dial 999 if there are any problems to transfer to NHS. There are a few with proper critical care units in major cities but smaller ones call a room with two beds HDU but it rarely meets the required standards for level 2crirical care.
Your consultant does generally have a full time NHS contract although a few just do private work (which is frowned upon as harder to have appraisals and maintain skills).
Independent providers do take the more profitable and simpler NHS contracts via CCGs commissioning. It does reduce waiting times for things like knees and hips. Some private hospitals do 60% NHS work.
Sadly for the NHS it leaves them with the complex surgery, emergency work, challenging patients and the frail elderly. They lose their profitable stuff and yet get rated and judged the same. Contracts to private healthcare providers are huge, consultants charge more for seeing NHS patients in private setting. Some trusts struggle to ensure the consultants do NHS job properly.(not all, to be clear) but some consultants on full NHS contracts work in 3-4 private hospitals as well.
Private hospitals have better hotel services, undoubtedly although increasingly newer NHS provision is for single rooms to improve infection control and patient experience.
Some private hospitals are now offering chemotherapy but they do very few and can't offer the additional services provided by the NHS. The staff are much, much less well trained. The emergency support usually falls to NHS too.

Realisticly how many pounds to you have to loose to move out of the obese category?

Secondly how many weeks/days have you got to achieve this weight loss.

As someone else said, I'd eat like a rabbit for a few days, cut out all sugary stuff, and eat smaller portion sizes than normal. Drink lots and lots of water and you'll lose a few pounds.

Will that be enough to take you back to a BMI of 30?

I'm 5'11" and even at that height it only takes 3kg to go down one BMI point - totally doable to lose that amount of weight with almost a week to go. Depending on your height it could of course be significantly less for you anyways.

In my experience cqc are much harder when inspecting. Private hospitals .

I don't understand.

Are obese people not allowed to use the NHS any more?

I think it's the opposite Cat.

I did this for a fertility appt. have to now lose 2kg before next jul

No Hotbot CQC are definitely not harder on private hospitals. Not sure how wide your experience is. You can't really compare the two, to be honest. Private hospitals mainly do a limited range of elective surgery on well patients. NHS takes what comes through door and provides much wider range of services. Private is usually OK for their core business (but not all are ) but the risks for some services and patients are significant. Particularly true with children's services and cancer services.

Are obese people not allowed to use the NHS any more

Read the OP? Obese people can't use private. They only take low risk patient apparently. I didn't know that before this thread. But I'm not surprised.

Crumbs my experience in both sectors in very wide thanks