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.

We use the Portland and we aren't an important or rich family. Just not willing to wait if we can avoid.

They have private physicians who have privileges at the hospital who can get them a bed.

There is private A&E but not for anything life threatening - eg following major accident, heart attack

Another example of a celebrity going to NHS ED is Harrison Ford when he was filming in Oxfordshire https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27919126.amp

Most big NHS hospitals, certainly those in central London, have private wings - e.g. the PoW was treated in the private wing of the Marsden and I'd assume the King was too.

As PP have said, there's a form of urgent care available privately, but the point about A&E is that it's generally in big hospitals so they can assemble multi-disciplinary teams, get a range of scans and tests done etc, all under one roof.

I appreciate that but if you were having a medical emergency what would you do?
As I said my son was in severe DKA its life threatening he was blue lighted to A&E straight through to resus and in critical care within an hour
For chronic conditions I appreciate if you can afford it you might want to avoid the long waiting time.

Not a full blown private A&E around here, but there are a variety of private hospitals and providers who will see you for a lot of different types of things here that you otherwise might phone NHS24, out of hours or minor injuries for.

In saying that, I have never waited very long at A&E. I was there last night after a fall and was having an x-ray within 45 minutes of arriving. This is a Scottish city on a Friday night. All of my experiences of A&E in Scotland and Northern England have been good, and most of them have been late night mishaps of one sort or another. Haven't tried any south of Yorkshire (hoping not to!)

All nhs hospitals have VIP policies which are primarily to deal with confidentiality and comms, however the trust I work in has a specific section for guidelines for treating royalty /high profile politicians. The security risks in themselves would facilitate prompt treatment and private facilities. We have had c list celebs in, to my knowledge, who get the same treatment as the rest of us. We do serve a category A prison so get regular visits from high profile prisoners and have special protocols for these people too.

I'm a private GP. In London and Birmingham there are urgent care centres, and I think in London GPs can arrange medical admission privately to one of the private hospitals which offers acute care. I'm up North and we don't have anything like that here. If the problem can be dealt with by a GP, patients can see me or other private GPs. If they need to see a specialist but it can wait a few days, we can often arrange urgent private consultant appointments. We can also arrange scans and blood tests privately. But if a patient needs hospital-level care or an acute admission, they go to an NHS hospital.

Private oncology care is available, though in my city, the private cancer wing doesn't have a consultant for every single subspecialty, so even very wealthy or well-insured patients sometimes end up in the NHS system for that.

I used to work in several London NHS A&E's and also private GP's and health facilities.
IF someone famous/well know came to a regular A&E, they'd generally get a private bay and have extra security. Depending on staffing, they would often get seen by the A&E consultant and moved out as soon as possible before other patients/paps would be aware. For example, St Marys had the Lindo wing for private patients, but not all hospitals did. If they needed admitting, a private room would be found there too.

At the private GP I worked in, there was a separate waiting room for very famous people. They still had to book appointments though. We had a contract with The London clinic, so if someone needed an X-ray, it was generally done that day and get seen there if needed.

They knew about him coming though. Downing Street staff arranaged how to get him in prior to him arriving.

He wasn't blue lighted or arrived by his driver dropping him off at the main entrance.

I don’t know what actually happens, but my feeling is they would either ring ahead and go to their usual private hospital if it has an A&E, or if not, they’d ring ahead and go to the nearest one with an A&E - and be seen separately in a private room?

Ah basically cross-posted with @JDM625 😊

Isn’t the Portland very expensive? 😯

I’ve used private urgent care for myself, we have one as close to home as the nearest NHS hospital and it’s just loads easier as no waiting around. I personally don’t bother for the kids as that would involve going further afield and actually the local NHS paediatric A&E is really good- only had to wait 30 minutes for DS to be seen for a broken arm.

Do you think Boris Johnson was on a corridor for 24 hours+ when he had covid? They get treated very differently, which they should not.

£185 not including any tests or imaging you might need. So not cheap if you’re paying out of pocket but it’s not mega expensive or anything.

I'm not sure if you're being serious with the 81 hours, if you are where is that figure from? The average waiting time is far lower, more like 3-4 hours.

My pal told me the nearest ER to one of the late Queen's palaces had an entire set of china in storage just in case she was ever a patient there...

But generally you can go private for elective stuff but the minute it gets acute they bluelight you to the nearest NHS hossy.

Of course there are! Plenty in London including St John & St Elizabeths and the Wellington.

I remember being in an NHS hospital once and heard that a well known celebrity was there. They didn't have to queue (at least not in a public waiting room) because of privacy concerns.

There are private emergencies but they work limited hours and do not cater for serious life threatening conditions. They are not very expensive.

Agree they might not wait in the main waiting room if that was going to cause issues but patients would be triaged according to severity and those with life threatening conditions or other risk factors would certainly be seen before a VIP without a life threatening condition.

Yes - Southmead

It would surely depend on his needs ,he ended up in critical care so would have bern extremely unwell.
Having sat with my son for three weeks on critical care they dont just admit for fun.