To consider Private Medical Cover

[needabreak5]

Given the concerns re NHS. My employer offers BUPA cover for me and family at a cost of approximately £160 per month. I would probably need to cut back to afford, maybe cancel gym membership and perhaps life cover. Would you do this? I’m worried about long waits and poor outcomes if any of us were to need any NHS treatment/diagnosis etc?

I understand considering it but definitely wouldn’t cancel life cover for it…

We have the whole family covered with AXA for £137, vitality quoted similar. So maybe shop around or do you mean your employer would pay the £160?

Wow, is that how much private health cover costs? Seems expensive as an extra monthly payment, not sure it's something we could afford as a family. It wouldn't cover emergency care either though would it? What's the excess and how many times do you have to pay it? Each time you claim? Definitely don't cancel your life cover!!

Rishi, is this you testing the temperature of the water?! 🙈

My employer would pay a portion, but I would need to pay the extra to cover my whole family and the tax so cost to me would be about £160. It’s a good cover, unlimited for certain things like cancer etc, and doesn’t require health screening.

Def don’t cancel life insurance!!

but def try to jiggle things so you can get the insuranxe

Excess is £100. It covers access to a GP for referrals but not emergency care like A&E stuff.

I have it as it’s paid for by work ! My husband also has his own from work - I’ve added my daughter to mine this year I think it’s only 30£ a month for her with bupa

best part of it has been the video gp service - my daughter is only 1 and she’s had rashes and various things I’ve as worried about and I got a video call within a few hours and was reassured!!

I’ve used the video gp a few times myself and got a prescription within an hour for mastitis - I had called 111 and nobody called me back for 6 hours.

not sure I’d pay for it though if I had to pay 160£ a month for the tiny amount of times I’ve made use of it

Not if it entails cancelling your life cover , no.

Whilst it's tempting, we have had cover via DH work for years. We've never used it, had no need, and the NHS has served us well. We've paid a lot in fees and extra tax over that same time for no outcome.

Recently, we have tried a few times to actually use the services it is meant to offer, or to claim the cash benefits etc. They have been hard to reach, slow to reply, there are excesses and restrictions that mean that actually we get nothing. We are supposedly able to access private GPs but because they actually use the same online private gp services as everyone else, there is no availability (I've tried sporadically for weeks - the tech makes me want to throw my iPhone) - but in the meantime my NHS GP has responded to a phone call, me popping into the actual surgery and to an online consultation discussion.

I have got them to agree to cover a private consultation appointment but because the private hospitals close to me that they cover are swamped, the first appointment is weeks away. Even then, with excesses and limitations, I'm not sure I will be covered for treatment arising.

I am not at all convinced that, as it stands, without paying really serious premiums, the cover you get, nor the actual private infrastructure in the UK, is all that much use when you need it.

Private medical cover has been so worth it for me.

5 years ago this month I was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer. Since then all my treatment has been covered every month. I pay approx £1k a year as a premium but just one month of the treatment I am on can be £5k and I don’t have to pay for any of it once I’ve paid the premium

£160 a month would I cover you for almost 5 consultations with private specialists..

We just save and have a medical pot, and bypass the NHS if we can really we warrant the speed or specialist.

In the years we've saved I've had 2 consultations and a 5k private surgery, and our savings more than covered that.

It was with a very specialist surgeon that wasn't working in the NHS.

Am researching this too op.

It doesn’t seem a good deal from your employer. DH has it through work with a axa and it was £200 for me and DS for a whole year. Similar excess of about £100

I would if I could afford it. Wouldn’t cancel life cover in favour though.

If you can afford it great but shop around as I agree that sounds expensive. I have family cover through work, good example is DH found out on 1st dec he has cataracts needed removing, he had first op 8 days later, had second eye done this week.
so within 5 and half weeks all done. Amazing. By comparison family friend been on NHS list for 10 months and had first eye done just before Xmas, they said 3 months for next one but guess what? Got a call this week she’s been bumped off list, now she can see ok with one eye they taken her off waitlist as others greater need 😱 un believable. Said they’d review again in a years time!!

I also had a friend with cancer, private health got her latest drugs that NHS wouldn’t even offer..
I’m not saying it’s right, but I’d do a LOT to cut back other timings to afford it if I had to.

Yanbu but do not cancel life cover. We are lucky enough to have our whole family covered for free with our jobs and it’s been fantastic we have all used it and been seen much faster than on the NHS.

Id definitely cancel gym subscription if that helps as you can exercise for free outdoors : fitness videos at home etc but private medical is invaluable.

Jokes aside; it depends on where in the country you are, and what the current circumstances are in your own health care authority.

I’m a GP in a small country surgery in south east England. Our patients have great (open) access to us and our local hospital trust (where my husband is a consultant) is creaking but the emergency/ cancer/ urgent cover is really good. Not necessarily comfortable (long A&E waits) but safe.

Private health insurance in these conditions wouldn’t negate the areas that are struggling (emergency care) and wouldn’t improve your emergency access.

For lesser life threatening things; sore knee affecting function, funny neurology, need (or indeed want) an MRI for back pain, need physio, skin condition, gastro symptoms with no red flags (after primary care investigation) etc you might wait 8months + for a specialist NHS appt. in these situations insurance is super helpful.

My dad was diagnosed with a very serious cancer in NI last year (an area reported to be really struggling with healthcare). The first 6 weeks ‘waiting’ for scans and tests were awful but really wouldn’t have been much faster in private sector… maybe a couple of weeks quicker. My parents understandably looked into and indeed were desperate to use their expensive BUPA to get on with things; then suddenly all the results came in and the NHS swooped in, his care was second to none medically speaking. No bells and whistles but really just the same drugs and scans and surgery he would have had in the private sector.

In our house we don’t have health insurance. I trust the system in life risking or urgent presentations. However we have paid privately for the odd specialist consultation re the kids (an allergy appt; £400 incl patch testing, a specialist appt for 10yo still nightly bed wetting)… but always paid just to expedite appt, not because the care would not eventually have happened. Indeed both appts were with the same specialists who also deliver the local NHS service (working full time NHS hours) so really we were paying for a timely weekend appt rather than better care.

if your family are young, in good health etc personally I would favour setting aside the £100 or so aside into a savings account and accepting that if the NHS is falling short of your needs you dip into that.

Having said all that I know the NHS is struggling at different levels across the country so it depends on what your local service is doing.

Sorry- long post!

Don’t cancel your life cover!

We have Bupa through DH’s employer and it’s good, particularly the video GP. You can self refer for most things now, which cuts out needing to get an NHS GP referral. There are tax deductions so it costs less than first appears.

NHS cancer care for some conditions is still better than private care as you can access clinical trials. Bupa are pretty good at finding experimental stuff though. The main problem is most people, pre retirement will never need it. Once you reach pension age, the time when you might make use of it, the employer contributions are no more and it becomes unaffordable.

Do not cancel your life cover.
Is it much cheaper if you just cover yourself/DH and not the rest of the family? For kids it is usually a waste of money as often the private sector won't treat them anyway.

The BUPA contribution your employer makes is usually treated as a 'benefit in kind' for tax purposes, so you do have an extra amount to pay.

Definitely do not cancel your life cover.

my work offers private health cover through AXA - the digital GP is useful but that’s offered to all employees regardless.

apart from that I’ve been hearing more people moaning about how long it’s taking for appointments and treatment - which makes sense given the NHS is outsourcing a lot to the private sector at the moment. My mom had a cataract found mid November, operated on within 10 days - on the NHS but outsourced to a private facility.

So at the moment I don’t think it’s worth it.

To the people paying for it but not using it, why?!?!

You are paying fir it so why not use it? You could take some of the pressure off the NHS, but chose not to?!

I have cover for myself and my daughter through work, my work pays for me (but I pay tax) and I pay for my daughter. It's probably £40 a month for both of us.

I can have a video/call appointment with a GP 24/7 and they send notes of my appointment to my NHS GP which helps getting an appointment if I need to see one in person.

Haven't had to use it for anything major, but it gives me a bit of peace of mine given everything at the moment. My daughter had a very poor start to life so I'm always concerned side-effects from that might crop up as she grows, so having access to private healthcare is a comfort. I've always seen my private healthcare to cover those minor ailments that aren't emergencies, or to get initial diagnosis- anything else is NHS as serious/emergency healthcare is where they shine.

I have it and think it’s great. I have 4 private gp appointments a year, can get one the same day with a consultant referral usually next day if not within 2/3 days.

Conditions that would take gps months to diagnose have been sorted within a week. Totally worth the money.

I've tried. They don't have capacity as I've explained. I've got cover and a referral for a private consultation but the local private outfit can't offer an appointment until Feb.

In the last I'd have liked to have used it for things for my children, which again, aren't available in local private provision.

My preference would always be for NHS care. I understand it, it's linked in, and I'd far rather be seriously ill or have an anaesthetic in a busy acute hospital with a resus team and ITU close by if given the choice. The thought of being acutely unwell, shut in a oriavte room away from staff and an ambulance ride from hdu/ITU doesn't appeal.

I couldn't get the referral without a gp appointment, and there are no available for appointments at the moment.

To those who have used it successfully and can get quickly appointments, was this very recently? Because I don't think my current experience is unusual. The private gp services/independent hospitals cannot ramp up provision and appointments rapidly and demand is vastly outstripping supply due to the NHS issues.