A&E and the wealthy

[GirlWednesday]

I was curious about whether there are private drop-in centres or A&E in the UK for people who can afford private health care. Apparently there aren’t.

AIBU to think this makes no sense? If someone very famous such as a member of the royal family, a famous actor or singer, or a high profile politician needed to visit a drop-in centre, I can’t imagine they’d be sat in a grotty NHS waiting room for hours with the general public? Or do they have doctors they can call directly to provide home visits if they need to see someone?

Probably not really a true AIBU but I wasn’t sure where else to post this.

They would go straight to the front of the queue, bypassing the average 81 hour wait time.

Interesting question. I have sometimes wished that o could go private. 😂😂

It wouldn't be cost effective to have permanently staffed 24/7 emergency departments for such a small pool of people. Pretty dull and de-skilling for the staff twiddling their thumbs for months on end too.

They just make special arrangements for them.

Royalty have their own doctors. It’s hardly fair to ask them to schlep into A&E and sit to be gawped at. But if it’s an emergency they’ll be in an ambulance and off to resus like the rest of us, just like Princess Di was.m in France.

The royal family have doctors on call at all times. Presumably if they needed emergency treatment that could only be done at a hospital they would jump the queue into a private room.
Anyone without 24 hour access to a doctor would have to do what the rest of us do.

Anyone important enough will skip the queue to save on the bad publicity.

I’d imagine they totally bypass A and E which is basically a triage system. Private doctors at home can do a lot of minor stuff and if they needed emergency treatment would be an ambulance straight to ITU.

This is incorrect. There is one in Birmingham at the QE, it’s called the Harborne Hospital. It’s not a 24 hour thing but you can walk in and be seen within 15 minutes, with additional diagnostics if required. All for a price of course! This service isn’t for life threatening cases though just very poorly

I could name a couple on London off the top of my head without having to think! There is definitely private provision for urgent and emergency care - not sure where you heard there wasn’t!

With private medical insurance you can contact a doctor and they would arrange it all maybe?

There are private urgent care centres in London and I have seen a celeb in one. They’re not for proper emergencies (heart attacks, big accidents etc) but the equivalent of minor injury units and you can get various tests, x rays etc. I’ve been to one with a suspected broken foot (DS), kidney infection on Christmas Eve and an issue with an infected wound.

It depends what kind of injury/illness we’re talking about really.

No there aren’t any private A&E’s (that I know of), as PP says it wouldn’t be worth staffing them for the amount of use they would get on a day to day basis, so a genuine 999 emergency heart attack/stroke etc is normal A&E.

But there are private drop in centres across the country and if you have private healthcare you can typically contact them directly and arrange an appointment. We pay for private healthcare via my husband’s employer and used this in November for our daughter, called and gave symptoms and were called in to be seen immediately. Not the same as A&E in that if it had been an absolute emergency obviously we wouldn’t have been hanging around to call/discuss we would have gone straight to our nearest hospital but it was urgent care.

Didn't Princess Anne spend time in a Bristol NHS A&E and then in the hospital when she had a medical emergency after a fall off a horse a couple of years ago?

There are various private urgent care facilities in London. So you'd only need A&E for a total emergency (heart attack, stroke, major trauma). And you shouldn't really be waiting for those in A&E.

Princess Anne went to an NHS hospital when she got kicked in the head by a horse (or whatever it was).

Prince Philip went to the private King Edward vii hospital, but was later transferred to Barts, which i think is generally and NHS hospital, not sure if it has any private bits. He also went to Papworth, which is NHS.

I expect they can get a lot of private care, including some very serious illness. Any admission to A&E would not be jumping a queue because it would be for something life threatening and anyone no matter what their status would be going straight to treatment if they arrived with the same illness.

I imagine people like the royals would have private doctors on staff, so they probably don't actually need to present at A&E except in very rare cases. And I imagine if they do, then the hospitals near various royal residences probably have protocols for if a 'VIP' has to come in.

They’d have access to an instant private gp who would then refer for urgent tests. However, in a car crash type scenario they’d be ambulanced to a normal emergency dept. Example being the daughter from the goldsmith family who tragically died in recent years.

If you have a true life threatening emergency then wouldn't you want experts in it(NHS).........not somebody who hardly sees any emergencies in a private hospital. I've worked in an NHS hospital for decades and patients are blue lighted to us if they have an emergency in the nearby private hospital.

Yes there is one in Marylebone. Princess Grace.

We have private healthcare through our work and i have used to for consultations etc. But there is no private A&E near us / I’ve never heard of one but we aren’t down south?!

They are not likely to wait in A and E unless its an absolute emergency at which point people are triaged,or sent straight through to resus ,when my son was in severe DKA ,he didnt have to wait in line with people who had broken toes etc ,he was blue lighted to A and E and straight through to resus as it was a life and death situation.

One or two of the big London teaching hospitals have fast track/specialist VIP access - set up for stuff like if the PM was rushed to hospital - and they’ll have special protocols for how things are managed, including random stuff like managing the media, etc etc. I’d guess they’d look after the royals as well, if they were in London?

It depends on the situation and the severity. Sophie is was at Frimley Park (NHS) due to an emergency in pregnancy. Boris Johnson was in another NHS hospital when he went into intensive care with covid. Same for his wife, Carrie (who whilst not married to him then, was living with him at Downing Street).

Usually very high profile people are admitted to NHS hospitals privately and due to privacy and confidentiality, it’s not disclosed so the public often don’t know.

HCA for example has a number of private urgent cares in London. As PP have said, they're akin to minor injuries. But if you go to one and it turns out that you need urgent NHS care, they call the ambulance for you and deal eith the handover etc so you then get seen verg quickly at the other end. E.g. you can go to them with suspected DVT and if needed they would call you an ambulance and the NHS hospital would know that you had a positive blood test and ultrasound and you'd speed through triage to the right treatment.

They're actually pretty reasonable and totally worth it to avoid an overnight wait in A&E IMHO. My last trip cost me about £250 and was all dealt with in under an hour.

Remember when Boris Johnson had Covid when he was PM? He was taken straight onto a ward /ICU without any waiting around. In Guys/St Thomas hospital iirc.