“Each missed appointment costs the NHS £152”

[TronIsAnAwesomeCatName]

Ok. I normally steer clear of AIBU, and am prepared to be flamed here because many people seem to treat criticising the NHS as blasphemy. But AIBU to think that £152 for 10 mins with your GP is just extortionate? How the flip does it cost the NHS that much for the GP to sit there and talk to me, maybe examine me (rarely seems to happen tbh) type a few notes on their computer? A private GP offers 15 min appointments for £55.
How is the NHS spending £152???

Admin costs too.

Personally i think in the uk we have an irrational stubborn pride in the system that is misplaced and a french style social security based nhs would be much more efficient

Maybe it’s an average cost, or depending on area. When my OH had a private apt, it cost £150.

I imagine admin costs, utility costs and the possibility that missing the appointment means someone else doesn't get help early enough so then needs more expensive treatment.

Admin costs, overheads etc. It all mounts up...

I though that was for a consultant.

I think it is admin costs, costs of sending reminder texts, etc Please tell me, where is this private GP that only charges £55? - not in London, I suspect (I have temped for one in the past that charges about £400 for the initial consultation - I don't know exactly how much because I asked him so I could tell enquirers on the 'phone and his reply was "if they have to ask, they can't afford me" - I think he may be on the more expensive end of the range though - the actual consultants I work for charge £200-£300 for a new patient).

"I though that was for a consultant." GPs are Consultants in General Practice medicine.

you're paying for the computer, for the electricity to run the computer, for the admin staff to do all the behind the scenes stuff, rent for the building, and so on. Plus the time of the GP who, because they are very highly trained, work out expensive by the hour (or 10 minutes). It's not like you'd expect to be seen by a school leaver with a couple of weeks on-the-job training, really.

They’ve got to pay the GP, they’ve got to pay the admin staff, they’ve got to pay the overheads to keep the building running... it all adds up

Supposedly the national average cost of a private GP appointment is £120, but that must include profit...

I agree that where there are ling waiting times meaning the GP is not sitting waiting for ten minutes but simply sees the next patient immediately it is hard to see where £150 comes from.

It's an average. If you're really interested in the true costs of everything the NHS does you can Google "NHS National Tariff". It's a publically available spreadsheet on the .gov.uk site and breaks down all NHS costs. It's eye opening reading.

Sorry, £120 is from
www.privatehealth.co.uk/conditions-and-treatments/consultation-with-a-gp/costs/

Private GP in London for £55

Overheads such as rent, utilities, equipment etc are fixed costs though, they do not vary based on how many appointments there are, surely? The cost of an appointment is literally the GP’s time, admin costs, perhaps some consumables used for physical examination. And why does it cost the NHS £100 more than the private sector?

Is this the other way around, to do with how GPs are funded, on a per-patient basis?

Op this is part of their effort to make you feel responsible for everything that goes wrong due to mismanagement (ie instead of questioning how things are run we're meant to accept that we're taxing the system with our presence and there are always people worse off etc).

I wonder how much it cost when they did a blood draw on me a couple of weeks ago and labelled it incorrectly so the lab didn't do the very test I was there to do? And I wonder how much it cost to do nothing after I contacted the surgery multiple times to ask them to contact the lab to resolve the problem before the blood was disposed of? And whatever that cost I assume it will cost the same again to do the blood draw a second time.

It is unlikely to be a true cost. Maybe it is simply the overall cost divided by the number of patients seen. But some patients are seen for very long appointments by a GP. Especially anyone who has a complex medical history. So yes I doubt this is actually the cost of a 10 minute appointment.

In similar vein the cost of the average hip replacement on the NHS is more than the cost in the private sector. Because the NHS pays the private sector to do all the easy ones, and does the more complex ones itself, often requiring much longer stays in hospital and rehab.

And anyone I know who works in the NHS overbooks appointments. So actually they couldn't cope if everyone did turn up.

On some very rough maths the GP's time is £22 for 10 minutes so the overheads must be very high!

catname Where I work we calculate the actual cost of our service taking into account a proportion of the overheads such as rent, maintenance, etc. Because those costs still have to be met. The NHS can not calculate a true cost unless it also does this.

They talked about this on the radio 4 statistics program more or less and said what nonsense it was as the doctor wasn't sat doing nothing.

Yes it won't be the actual cost. It will be this surgery costs £xx to run, there were yyy appointments, and dividing one by the other. But home visits take much longer and my surgery does them every day. I have taken a relative to their GPs for mental health crises and sat with them in an appointment for nearly an hour, and never less than 20 minutes. So I suspect the £155 is widely inaccurate and designed to make you feel as guilty as possible if you miss an appointment.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05tpn4b
Link to podcast of more or less

crunchy those things plus a profit margin must also be factored into the private GP's fee though. Plus as everyone says the GP doesn't sit doing nothing, the GP simply sees the next patient as they are always over booked or running late.

I've just checked in our area, you can have a private 30 minute GP appointment in GP's rooms for £80 or at the Nuffield hospital in Cheltenham for £95. The real bargain is a home visit for £120!
I'm almost tempted to call out the private GP to see me at home next time I need a doctor rather than sit in the miserable waiting room of my NHS GP surrounded by posters lecturing me about things I don't do in the company of a strange breed of people who manage to combine the appearances of obesity and heroin addiction, being snarled at by the surly receptionist.