To want to hear your views and experiences of private healthcare

[PaddleBoardingMomma]

Posting for traffic.

Having read a couple of posts this week where the OP was seriously unwell and had an awful time in A & E, also reading past threads of massive referral waiting times, GP's being unhelpful and the struggle to even get seen, it's made me wonder about those of us who have opted for private care and how your experiences have differed?

I must admit, seeing so many struggle and have pretty dire outcomes last year I took out vitality healthcare for me and my two daughters but thankfully haven't needed it yet, so can't comment on what the process is like.

I have private healthcare through work. The main difference is that it is SO much quicker. I needed to see a consultant recently, had to wait a month privately vs 8 months on the NHS. When I’ve needed physio for injuries or back pain it’s straight to the physio that same week or even the next day without having to see the GP first. I’ve never had any problems with quality of care in the NHS, in fact I’ve been very lucky with my GPs and gynae care (although recent stories have made me consider private maternity!) so the speed is the thing that makes it stand out for me.

I’ve been a private patient for 20 years. You need to know how the system works. It works better in London because there are more options. When I had my DC and my 5yr old needed an opt, we checked the ITU facilities. Something not all private hospitals have as a poster rightly points out. Also truly/experienced private GPs know the best routes to consultants and facilities. Regarding A&E there is some lower level facilities in London but you need to transfer unless life threatening. I have my GPs mobile for any emergency. I’d say allocate a bit of your budget!! we do!

good luck

@comtesseDeSpair. That's horrible. I had a dermoid cyst the size of a grapefruit. It had blond hair ! Ive naturally jet black hair . It also had teeth and nails. Fuckin horrible thing. Please push to get it removed. My gyne told me it needed out ASAP because they are the type of ovarian cysts that turn nasty (cancerous) .

We have only good things to say about private healthcare.

Our son has had 2 ops and my dh has had numerous procedures and diagnostics. No waiting, fantastic service and comfortable stays. We wouldn't be without it.

We’re a low healthcare user family (touch wood hopefully not jinxing)

NHS has been fine to good - births, one asthma stay of one night, a few GP small things

private for two decades and used it once for top consultant

glad we had it at the time

Private mental health care excellent, compared with pace and training of NHS. I would not have received ADHD diagnosis and started appropriate treatment and strategies for a lifelong mental health problem without it.

Private physio for a badly sprained ankle also much quicker to arrange compared with NHS.

Private medical care for other issues, 50/50. Most of the consultants in my area are working in both private and NHS clinics. Technically a faster time to appointment on the private route, but that doesn't seem to make the consultants less overloaded with patients. Discharge still a bit too quick for ongoing problems, follow up still a bit lacking.

Just a word of caution....... private hospitals rarely have resuscitation facilities or intensive care, so if something goes wrong in routine surgery (like it did for DH during a minor hernia repair) then you end up in an ambulance and taken to your local NHS hospital. We've said we would never risk it again - I think some London private units do have these facilities but rural county ones like ours certainly don't.

It's great for beating queues to see a Consultant and have tests done however.

We had major issues with vitality not covering needed treatment - twice. Decided it wasn’t worth it and we just said pay now.

I’m wanting to know - how did people find a private Gp? Do you have to be referred through your nhs Gp for starters? Do you find them by friend recommendation or do you just google local, private Gp services?
Going to be moving soon, and the ‘new’ local nhs Drs doesn’t seem to do any appointments/telephone/e consult etc. suspect it going to be a lot of hassle just trying to register. Private or nothing might be the only option.
I assume if you have insurance, they book you in with a private Gp on their list?? Although was thinking pay as you go rather then insurance.

I disagree about low risk! I’ve had enough eye operation snd it wasn’t low risk to me if it went wrong! Same surgeon as NHS but after waiting 1 year I got it done on Vitality @PaddleBoardingMomma .

I opted for General Anaesthetic and I’m glad I did. At the time I had the operation, the surgeon told me his already full waiting list had gone to 2 years. As it was a condition that got worse I decided to claim. The NHS were only prioritising people who needed an immediate op to save their sight. I had a follow up op too.

I didn’t eat much food! Just sandwiches. Main op was done at the NHS hospital - better equipment apparently. I think it was a Saturday morning so the eye dept was empty. Nothing else going on!

Claims were easy enough. You have to get agreement to have the op from Vitality and then everything goes through on your account. If you can get off z waiting list, I would. I had to pay the excess twice as the follow up op was counted as separate. It wasn’t snd was a direct result of the first op. A known consequence and no dodging it. Overall, I would not be without health insurance. The NHS is a lottery and mostly there for emergencies and diseases that kill you.

As the people above have said it’s generally just a better experience BUT ….

I have cover of 1k outpatients a year. A first appointment is £250 - was no where near this pre pandemic and I’m still waiting 6 weeks for a respiratory consultant , which is frankly a bit crap. A few tests and I’ll have used my annual budget on one issue.

My sister has recently gone from biopsy, to results, to cat scan to starting immunotherapy treatment for melanoma in under 2 weeks with private. Amazing.

Whilst it is technically true that a lot of private insurance policies say you can transfer care from NHS to private in an emergency situation, in practice they make it very difficult. You need to get a consultant to consultant referral, they will offer cash to you to stay in the NHS and you or your family need to be very pushy/proactive to get your care transferred. Plus lots of emergency conditions aren't covered by insurance or private healthcare doesn't have the right staff or facilities.

In a emergency or after an emergency admission most people are too ill and worried about getting better to navigate the process and end up staying with the NHS.

When i said low risk what i meant was low risk candidates. So for example the threshold for accepting risk of complication may be lower. With a preference for easier, more predictable cases. Leaving tricky and high risk (in terms of chance a good outcome) to the NHS.

I'm not against private health care. It's just private health care provision in this country is not the same as NHS. I would see private as a top up, queue reducing measure. Not a full replacement.

Unless you pay £££££. And live in London.

@tilder no private healthcare is not the same as the NHS. The staff ate courteous as a starter for ten. The facilities mess you about less.

I have PPP through work. When I didn't have it, once the DC hit 18 the annual cost for four of us in London hit about £8k per annum. We took the view we would self fund.

When dd was ill with her mh, BUPA picked up a bill of about 11k. However they didn't cover the assessments for neurodiversity and therapy was limited to £500. OTH the NHS offered sweet FA so it's good we could pick up the tab.

We have a home in France. Healthcare is a zillion times better there.

I have it through work :

Same day GP virtual calls / possible to get calls with special interest GPs

Easy referral with quick appointments , sometimes same day MRI or blood test in my case

Also had thousands pounds of physio / rehab covered in the last year

Insured through top level axa and now WPA

After a few decades of having private health cover, I decided not to renew. It has pros and cons.
If you have simple healthcare needs such as; otherwise relatively healthy but need a knee replacement, a private hospital is usually a nicer and quicker experience.

If you have any risky health problems, they are unlikely to operate in a private hospital even with intensive care facilities. I have a serious condition and it got to the point where they wouldn’t do anything, so I didn’t see the point in carrying on paying Bupa all that money.

I was once admitted via private A&E to the private hospital but it was a pain in the backside. My insurance company closed at 9 pm and the hospital wouldn’t admit me unless I confirmed I would self fund or had insurance approval. I finally managed to sort it before they called an ambulance to ship me to the local NHS hosp. It was stressful when I was already very poorly.

Private rooms make all the difference for sleep and recovery. The food is always better. It’s quieter. The care is usually politer but I’ve had a few interactions that I thought were poor. After an operation, they helped me to the toilet, then left but forgot about me and when I leant over to pull the cord to alert them, I was dizzy and fell off and hit my head. I was also once taken for a scan and left there!

I had Bupa when we lived in the UK. I only used it a couple of times and private GPS weren’t such a big thing back then.

My only issue was persuading my NHS GP to do a private referral. I had paid for Bupa and wanted to use it for quicker treatment. She was very pro NHS and only gave me a private referral very grudgingly. She insisted on sending me to the same person I would have seen on the NHS because she could confirm he was properly peer reviewed etc.

I then had to chase the NHS surgery for the referral for a couple of weeks despite being told I could pick it up the next day.

When I finally got it, I saw the consultant (a professor) rather than one of his minions within a couple of weeks. Two rounds of treatment prior to surgery all of which was scheduled around my diary. I got to chose between two hospitals for the surgery. It was a day surgery, no overnight stay.

It was quiet and peaceful and professional. I had a nicely decorated private room and was told to choose a sandwich and drink from the menu for lunch after my surgery. Surgery went well. I was wheeled back to my room for my sandwich. I waited a while for someone to check on me and ended up ringing the bell for help to get to the loo. A nurse was there immediately! Seriously, it was like she was standing outside the dorm and waiting! She then sent the physio in to check on me before discharge. I had to wait for the physio to arrive for about, ooooh, 90 seconds! Follow up in the consultant’s office the following week and all was well.

100% worthwhile!

I now live in Australia where private medicine is more acceptable and encouraged through taxation. I’ve just calculated that my insurance here only costs about £250 per annum more than it did in London about 10-15 years ago.

The coverage is very different - I now have optical and dental and lots more extras but doctors’ fees are only covered for hospital treatment, not office based consultations.

Waiting times for private appointments are worse than GP appointment waiting times here. I get GP appointments the same day or for the next day. My Dh has waited between 1 and 3 weeks for a private healthcare appointment.

Waiting rooms and buildings are nicer with private healthcare but they don't provide A&E services and for serious illnesses, they refer you back to the NHS. Imo private healthcare is fine for ongoing issues and non-urgent care - although a lot of private insurance does not cover ongoing issues so you need to pay for it yourself anyway. But for regular illnesses and serious conditions, you're better with the NHS. Ironically my DH had a private appointment last week, the consultant told him he'd have been better seeing them through the NHS since obviously they work in both.

I worked for the NHS and then for one of the better known private hospitals.

I would never go to a private hospital unless it was undertaking NHS work.

That doesn't mean I would never use private medicine, but it would be a private ward in an NHS hospital.

Wen my dad got his appointment for a hip replacement and he was offered a place in a private hospital my mum was really pleased, I went straight to emailing the hospital asking questions about staffing levels.

Now private hospitals all have a Dr in the hospital 24 hours a day. They are usually registrars in the NHS and take the work on for a bit of easy cash.

The hospital I worked at had a maternity ward so the Dr they had on site was an obstetrician, which might not be ideal if you have a stroke post op.

Private hospitals do not need to have 24 hour nursing staff either so if you start to bleed out after an op you may find a HCA is not the best person to deal with it.

The advantages are of course a private room, nicer food, the option of ordering an alcoholic drink, nice toiletries.

You also get to be seen by a consultant and that is the person who will carry out any procedures.

Staff are less stressed and, where I worked, all patient appointments were 1 hour whereas in the NHS you may have something like a pacemaker clinic where each patient has a 15 min appointment with no gaps in between.

In the private hospital I might have 1 patient for a pacemaker check up and then the next patient would be there for an echo.

Another thing that happened when I was working in a private hospital was that a student was promoted to physiologist, now in the NHS that CANNOT happen, you need to complete the training before you get the job.

So in summary, for anything routine, you will have a nicer stay, if anything goes wrong you may be shipped back to the NHS and you may have to pay for that NHS treatment.

So before going in to a private hospital ask relevant questions

How many qualified nurses and Drs are in the hospital over night? Where did they train? By this I mean what country?

What specialty do these staff have?

What happens in an emergency?

Oh another thing that happened in the private place was 'private nurses' so a patient would be in hospital and have a nurse with them, just for them.

Mostly these were Kiwis who would bring a book because the hospital nurses did all the nursing and in the case of some patients there was also a maid to help with dressing.

I'm not sure how it would go down in the NHS if you turned up with your own nurse.

I've had 5 operations in a private hospital via NHS Choose & book, A private ensuite room, my partner was able to stay with me, everything happened when it should. I had brilliant care, pain relief was there as soon as I needed it, no waiting for hours to be discharged, my drugs to take home were there waiting for me. If you can use the Choose & book system I wouldn't bother with private healthcare unless you get it with a job, any op that can be done privately you can have with Choose & book as it gets waiting lists down. I never waited longer than a month from first seeing the consultant to having the operation. Really the only things you can't have are things like heart or brain surgery or anything that would need an ITU bed.

We had it through exDHs work but we cancelled it after a while. We have a great GP surgery and get seen within 24hours though.

It doesn't replace a&e or urgent care and an online GP won't prescribe/ manage urgent issues such as a morphine prescription. The endocrinologist I saw was the same one I saw through pregnancy (on the NHS) and he recognised me and he was clear he wouldn't do anything different from NHS it was just a bit faster to see him.

ExDH had a vesectomy. It was 4 weeks wait on NHS and then free, or 3 weeks private and we'd pay a top up. So we waited for the NHS.

We use private physio and counselling/ psychotherapy but it's been overall cheaper to pay for those as and when, not as a monthly prescription.

For people who fund private health insurance themselves do you find your premiums rise every year and then rise even further if you have submitted a claim ? This is what puts me off getting it.

I think some of it depends where you live. I would not use my local hospital for all the money in the world for A&E or anything else. Where I live the CCG is now refusing to refer to anywhere but our local hospital which has a shocking reputation. Chose and book is no longer available here. I will not even see a consultant who works there privately, except for one speciality, therefore private healthcare is essential unless one wishes to be at the mercy of a hospital that has consistently required improvement for the last 10 years.

I used private urgent care for a minor injury this week. I was seen immediately with no wait time whatsoever. It was beyond the urgent care doc’s remit so I got an immediate referral to the specialist, who saw me same day and did the procedure then and there. It was about as positive experience as you can get whilst still having a bad injury! I also had my babies privately but on the private ward within an NHS hospital as having a full NICU etc just in case was still important to me. We’re all registered with a private GP too. Tbh I gave up with the NHS a very long time ago.