To expect to be able to have a hip operation done on the NHS?

[girlfriend44]

Is anyone waiting or know anyone waiting for a hip replacement?
Hubby had one done a few years ago and we paid as the wait was so long on the NHS and he was in alot of discomfort!
Now he feels that the other one May need doing?

Is the Waiting list still long does anyone know?
Has anyone seen a private consultant and taken the report saying they need a hip op to the NHS and got it done quicker.
Although we would pay again if we had too, it seems wrong that you have too.

Any hints/tips thoughts on this?

I'm in Scotland. I had a referral done in October last year for a consultant opinion on double hip replacement due to increasing pain, difficulty walking and general deterioration. GP did referral straight away and I'm still waiting for that appointment. I've been told current waiting time is 68 weeks and if green light given for surgery, up to 2 years wait. That's despite a recent flare up that took me to A&E and i'm now on stronger meds which i hoped would let me get on top of the pain but haven't so far. It leaves me feeling drained and it wakes me up at night.

Private surgery is slightly under £15,000 per hip which would wipe out my retirement savings. Might come to that but I hope not.

It's a shambles

My MIL has been waiting over 18 months now. She is in quite a lot of pain and has been moved up the list and hopefully the operation will be in October.

Wow, I'm amazed by the waiting lists!

I had a big knee repair done last year. Initial injury was in July, saw the consultant in October and the repair was November. A workmate had a knee replacement at the same hospital, I think it was 3 months from referral, it may have 4. A gym friend had a hip replacement, again that was less than 6 months from referral. It's shocking how it differs in different areas.

This is the West Midlands, at an orthopaedic hospital (all NHS)

No idea how useful or relevant this is, but I live in mainland Europe and just had a double hip replacement done. I'm late 40s. I saw the consultant in March who gave me an appointment for the surgery to be done in June.
5 day hospital stay in a private room. Total cost was around 20,000 euro, was covered by my health insurance through work. Staying in a shared room for 2 or 4 people would be much cheaper.

To add to my previous post, I miraculously had my nerve blocks around four weeks ago. I haven't even seen anybody yet about the bone spur, but have an assessment next month when I fully expect to be fobbed off.
21 months on from my initial referral for my prolapse, I saw the surgeon again recently (and I suspect I only got the appointment because I wrote a letter begging for help, saying how awful it is to deal with, and the mental impact it has on me), having done the rounds of physiology etc in the meantime. I now have an appointment for a repeat of a test I had, and then he will discuss with MDT with a view to surgery. This is only because he has exhausted all of the other avenues that he could possibly refer me to, without committing to the surgery, which is what I needed in the first place. The stupid thing is that now, my prolapse has advanced to a state where he will need an additional surgeon to help because it has gone so far. Suffice to say your internal organs should not be at the point of exiting your body.
I've already said the service is shit. If now like to add that it's seriously affecting people's mental health (mine included). What's laughable is that the local hospital trust had a report in my local paper last year, stating that they had caught up with the backlog of patients - meanwhile, my experience has been the complete opposite.

Aunt paid £14k after waiting 2+ years and no date given for nhs op. OP was more complicated due to deterioration due to long wait.

Can you find a private consultant that also sees patients at your nearest hospital? I saw a consultant privately and he said he would refer me back to the NHS and my appointment came through 2 weeks later,(I had been waiting a year) not hip but another procedure.

On the South Coast, this issue is dealt with by the NHS by dint of accepting no new referrals for rheumatology. Obviously that magically solves the problem

Depends on need If competing with tons of elderly who have fallen it could be a long time

What is Choose and Book?

In some areas, if you pay for a private consultation and x-rays with a surgeon who does that surgery for the NHS in your trust area, they can add you to their NHS list but you get your surgery more quickly.

I know a couple of people who've done this in the last couple of years. I don't agree with it, but I do understand that people get desperate to have stuff donw when they're in constant pain.

The whole palaver of having to go through physio/MSK services before you can be referred to a surgeon is bloody ridiculous, too. It took 17 months when I was waiting to have my knee sorted out, 6 months of that was waiting for the first physio appointment.

From seeing the consultant to having the knee replaced was only 10 months though, which I thought was pretty good, and that was only 2 years ago. (This is in Sussex, but we come under the same trust as Brighton.)

Sadly, long waits are nothing new. My MIL waited 2 years for a hip op around 2005!!

My sister was waiting and waiting, and eventually about to give up her job (in her 50s) because she could no longer work with a non functioning hip.

She got an inheritance and went private.

She is back at work now. Paying tax and NI. Had she not spent her inheritance she would now be on benefits.

It's a postcode lottery, my sister in Cornwall has just had a new knee, been waiting over a year, couldn't walk and barely stand. Where I live we have a stand alone NHS unit that does hips and knees. I had a new hip there in 2019, waited four months after seeing consultant. Now having a new knee, xray mid May, saw consultant end of August, op scheduled for November 16th. However the mantra is "in for a knee, out for tea!" If you're on the afternoon list you stay in one night, morning list, out the same day. We need more like this.

She was bloody unlucky then.

The total number waiting longer than nine months for treatment has fallen by 34,000 in a year. The new statistics show that 86 patients had waited more than nine months at the end of December - down from more than 300 in November. Twenty-four patients had waited longer than a year.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/feb/11/politics.publicservices

same here had to pay - it is all wrong and we should be compensated after paying in all our lives. by paying i was just freeing up a place for someone else - i wanted to go abroad but the passport office was on strike and it took months to get the passport. in the end i just paid - the whole nhs needs to be re-organised. my knee now needs doing but waiting for referral. if i paid into bupa and they took years to treat me i could take them to court . at my age it is ruining my remaining years so i paid.

l.hoad

partners had both done now. Paid Privately. Its worth it if you can afford it. You get your quality of life back. Otherwise life is on hold and painful.

I don’t think paying to jump the queue is wrong @LINDAHOAD. I had a very stark choice - pay for my cataract operations or go virtually blind and lose my independence. I had the money so I paid and it was the best money I’ve ever spent. I didn’t free up a place in the queue for someone else as my surgery was done outside NHS operating hours.

In my experience of the NHS, it's in a terrible state right now and if you can afford to pay, then go private.

I know that one 'shouldn't have to' and totally agree with the concept but unfortunately in reality if you value your health and can afford private care then take it. Life is for living.

Speaking as someone who has no hope of paying for private healthcare and on a wait list for surgery.

I had a hip done in the summer, privately. Took me over a year to get an appointment with the consultant on the NHS, having gone through many pointless MSK appointments. (You can't cure or help a joint that's degenerated to that degree.) A total waste of resources. MY GP maintained that the consultant wouldn't agree to see me unless I'd jumped through all the MSK hoops.

By the time I saw the consultant my hip was so bad it was partially dislocated, but the wait time for replacement would still have been 4-5 months on the NHS. My other one will need doing and he told me not to "leave it so long next time" and that the GPs are just "guarding their budgets". It's taught me that I need to be much more of a nuisance if I want anything done on the NHS. And possibly to pay for a private consultation to see if that gets you on the list any sooner. I'm not really for or against private medicine and am certainly not well off. I resented paying for it, but felt I'd already lost a couple of years of my life to it and was in too much pain to carry on that way.

For all that, the surgery I had, in a private orthopaedic hospital, is the place I'd have gone under the NHS. The only difference was a slightly better menu and a few physio sessions as follow up. The care was excellent, and I couldn't believe how quickly I recovered.

absolutely awful - all the delay cost more in the end financially without the stress levels to you - i would make a formal complaint because this level of is non existent

lh

Wow! My partner saw an optician in June who referred him to his GP for cataract surgery (it had recently massively deteriorated) - saw the surgeon 2 weeks later on a Saturday at an off-site contracted-out service on an industrial estate 30 miles away, had the surgery 2 weeks later - again on a Saturday - in July. All paid for by the NHS.

Some services, the low-risk easy-gain stuff like cataracts, really are worth the NHS contracting out. I expect it’s a postcode lottery though, going by your vastly different experience.

The last Trust I worked for contracted out a lot of their joint replacement surgery in the same way.

I obviously live in the wrong part of the country @MavisMcMinty. There’s a two year waiting list here, then they do one eye and send you to the back of the queue for the other one. I’m too old for that sort of nonsense.

Anyone needing cataract surgery, if you join Benenden, after 6 months, you can have them done privately, costs £13 a month, no jumping through NHS hoops, if you can't be seen within 3 weeks on NHS you go private. It includes things like hysterectomy, gallstones, bunions etc.

yes the government should bring in a part payment scheme for people who have waited an excessive amount of time,. they pay half and the patient pays half - you should not have to but this would be fairer.

lh