To think it’s so wrong that if you have money you can jump NHS waiting lists?

[ImaHogg]

I have some gynae issues. I had a scan in September 2020 and a telephone consultation with a gynaecologist. I was told that I need a hysteroscopy with a biopsy and to remove some polyps.
Obviously due to Covid I, alongside so many others am now on a waiting list. I (and my gp) have chased many times but just get told they have absolutely no idea when my procedure will be.
I am getting problems from the issues I have and have had enough so rang my local private hospital to ask if they do this procedure (can not really afford to go private but I am getting desperate and wanted to know how much it may be). I was told they don’t do this procedure at this hospital but there may be an ‘alternative’! They would talk to the gynaecologist and get back to me.
They rung back to say they had spoken with the gynaecologist and he would be happy for me to have a consultation at the private hospital (£150) then I would need an ultra sound scan (I would have to have this done at the private hospital even though I have a copy of the NHS one from September, same gynaecologist), then he would be able to do the hysteroscopy but at my local NHS hospital - wtf!!
So basically for a fee of £2000 I can skip the NHS waiting list, skip the luxury surroundings of the private hospital and have the same procedure at the same NHS hospital that I have currently been on a 8 month waiting list.
So if you have money you can push back NHS waiting lists even further by flashing the cash!

Peoples expectations of the NHS are too high frankly. The NHS should be seen as a service for ill people and priorities made.

Politically however that would never happen....can you imagine IVF being curtailed completely?

I am obviously not explaining myself well if this is what you understand from my messages @roboticcarrot.

Money affords you more choice in many areas of life, healthcare is no exception. The NHS is slowly crumbling, anyone who can afford to is better off going private.

It is so so wrong, but unfortunately it’s how it is. There is too much demand on too limited resources. Healthcare professionals are under payed for life saving and exhausting work, so offer private work to offer the standard of care they want to as well as supplementing their income.

I’ve just waited 15 months for a hysteroscopy, removal of polyps and fibroids and biopsy of the endometrium, despite the initial symptoms being post menopausal bleeding. I had it done on the NHS in a private hospital in the end due to the wait.

So if you have money you can push back NHS waiting lists even further by flashing the cash!

That’s not how it works. Private work is carried out outside the surgeon’s NHS contract, ie in their own time. Our local hospital has a private wing which isn’t available to NHS patients. The only impact on NHS waiting lists is to shorten them.

Just because some people can't, it doesn't mean those who can, shouldn't.

Anyone would pay to be seen and treated more urgently if certain circumstances arose and if they could afford it.

Private procedures undertaken with NHS equipment and, sometimes, NHS time, are all paid for out of the fees.

I think you’ve misunderstood, you wouldn’t be able to go back in the NHS waiting list at a higher place. Did they tell you you could just pay privately for the investigations and then get the op on the NHS or are you paying for the op aswell?

I have seen 5 different private consultants in the last 7 months relating to my cancer diagnoses and all apart from 1 appointment, I have seen them after 5pm once they have finished their day jobs in the NHS.

I was going to have a 4 month wait for surgery in a private hospital because the NHS had booked all of the surgery slots and the surgeon couldn't get me onto his NHS list. I got a second opinion from a different surgeon closer to home and he again couldn't do the operation privately but moved me to his NHS list and it was done about a month later.
I'm glad it was because my cancer had spread and was much more extensive than was first thought.
After the operation, I needed to have chemotherapy urgently but the wait to start on the NHS was 5 weeks. I used my insurance again and had seen the oncologist and had an echocardiogram in 5 days and started chemo in 11 days post surgery results. I'd still be waiting to see the oncologist on the NHS but I have freed up a space for someone else.

I'm not sorry that I have moved between the two, I would have been entitled to have NHS treatment from the start but I would have had to coordinate two team and two strands of treatments when I was quite ill. I've also paid tax on the cash benefit of my private medical insurance for years and why shouldn't I use it.

Those going private are not 'helping' the community. They are helping themselves because they can and want to.

Well, they are because they are leaving more public services available. But they are definitely not hindering the community by using private services.

I'm afraid I can't get too het up about this.

If you have the money to pay for private hospital treatment, you are probably a higher rate taxpayer. The sooner you get whatever treatment you need, at your own expense, the sooner you can get back to work and start paying tax that the NHS needs to work its way through the long waiting list that you are no longer contributing to.

That's an oversimplified view, as not every illness actually renders people signed off work, but hopefully the general sentiment is clear.

It's the same reason law firms and the Big 4 - industries where people get charged out by the hour to clients - tend to have very good private health cover for their employees. It is not because they want to attract the best talent or because they give a shit about their workforce. They want to keep them healthy and at work, making money.

People don't go privately for altruistic reasons, but funding your own healthcare out of your post tax income can indirectly have a vaguely altruistic effect. It moves other people up the queue.

There are worse inequalities in life.

That’s just how it goes. I’ve paid to jump the queue with my pancreas disease, I work full time and whilst the cash isn’t exactly spare it was money well spent

The consultants I work for would not see ap private patient within a normal clinic day. They would schedule the appointment outwith normal clinic hours or hold a seperate clinic on a saturday. You wouldn't be taking am NHS slot.

YANBU. It's privatisation of the NHS by stealth. I think NHS hospitals and private hospitals should be completely separate. There is a 2 tier healthcare system being created in this country.

I know someone who was able to do exactly the same thing with the same issue.

She's a nurse so maybe she knew how to navigate the system. Initially I thought she was going to pay for the whole thing (which is why I asked her would it be £££?) and she explained she was only going private for the first bit, to get the op more quickly, but the actual operation would be on the NHS. I had no idea this was a thing.

I was told years ago at a private consultant appointment to keep attending A & E say I am in a lot of pain and then I would rise up the NHS op list faster! Great eh! I ended up spending my own savings on principle and necessity to pay for op privately! The system is all wrong!

@WaspRelatedEmergency

YANBU. It's privatisation of the NHS by stealth. I think NHS hospitals and private hospitals should be completely separate. There is a 2 tier healthcare system being created in this country.

I don't think you must realise, but if this happened, it would not be the NHS hospitals that benefited. Private healthcare subsidises NHS running costs - if the private sector were not using some NHS facilities, there wouldn't be more NHS work, there would be even more time when the facilities stood unused because the NHS can't use them - they have neither the running costs nor the staffing. Yes, you could keep them entirely separate. Then it's true that the private sector would invest more in the wider range of facilities in their own hospitals. They would cream off all the best and most qualified staff. And you would still have two tiers of healthcare in the country. But the bottom tier would be the worst for it. It wouldn't get better, it would get worse.

@NursieBernard

When PP are slotted into NHS elective lists there are only 3 parties who benefit, the patient, the anaesthetist and the surgeon. Although the Hospital Trust will receive payment it is not used for the benefit of NHS patients on the waiting list who might have had that theatre slot instead.

Where does the money go, then?

The NHS trust is getting some of that money that you pay for the procedure. The consultant isn't getting all that money. This is the way of health care here unfortunately.

I’ve got many private consultants. I paid for my daughter to see a private consultant when the nhs refused to see her. The private consultant (who incidentally is my nhs consultant) was so horrified by what he found. He got her in for an op within 3 weeks. The only slot he had was at the nhs hospital. The receptionist was so horrible to me. Saying I jumped the queue. But at that point I didn’t even know it was at that hospital. I didn’t pay for the op but I gladly said I would. I think he felt that we’d be let down so badly and that what she had could of ended her up in ICU as a baby. That it was just imperative that wherever it was. It was quickly.

She fully recovered. I couldn’t be more thankful for that Initial app which cost me £295.

I’ve never got in front as an adult other than the initial consultation. Though my endo diagnosed me privately with an illness which would of killed me. However that took over a year even privately.

The consensus is though by going private. You cut the wait list of the nhs.

@UserAtRandom

I think it's wrong that NHS waiting lists are so long that people are desperate. DD has been waiting for medical treatment for the last 18 months. She is literally surviving through a day at a time as in so much pain. I don't even have the option to pay for private treatment as no one round here is seeing children privately. But if I had the option I would be remortgaging the house and selling everything we have. I it's wrong not to want to see a child in constant pain, then I am a terrible person.

Bless you

We’ve been there. I get your pain. If you need a friendly chat. Pm me. I would of done the same. Sold my house. Every material possession. Fortunately we got lucky with a private consultant. But I cannot express how fortunate we were.

It’s awful. My daughter was 18 months when she got sick. She was sick for over 2 years and ended up in hospital over 50 times. It was my own digging around that finally found what was wrong. We took a chance and I found a dr willing to do that. We were right. Her operation saved her. The nhs refused to even see her.

Op is right and this happens quite often.

It’s not massively fair though.

People can pay to go private for an initial consultation and diagnosis, and then get listed back on the nhs waiting list for treatment or surgery. Often they will “find” an appointment for them or a theatre slot.

I’ve always thought it was unfair but quite a few patients do it...

@Adventureswith

I hate that consultants do this. Train and work in the NHS then make themselves unavailable for half a week to work privately. I know some won’t do private work out of principal. And they’re far from poor becuase of it.

They're not hugely well paid considering all the years if study and the ongoing stress of the job itself and the bureaucracy surrounding it. I know several nearly consultants who've decided to get out because it just isn't worth it.

Consultants had Nye Bevan over a barrel in 1947/1948 and any attempt to end private medicine or reduce it would face the same issue. Or just enough consultants leaving the country to work elsewhere.

This consultant does both. So you can either go on their NHS list and wait for their next available date, or you can pay their private consultation fee and go on the likely much shorter list.

Been there, done it, got the T shirt. You pay the consultation fee (usually about £100-150) then tell the consultant it will have to be NHS. You have your treatment in an NHS hospital and its performed by the consultant as part of his/her private list. Not as quick as if you went entirely private but you can jump a whole section of the queue.