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.

I know Davina McCall's brain aneurysm was picked up when she had an MRI. She had no symptoms to be referred for 1 she just had 1 as an overall health.

I know Jason Manford has had treatment in NHS hospital. I'm not sure the procedure if they break a bone. But obviously if their in a car crash they would be taken to the nearest hospital. Or if serious injuries the nearest trauma unit.

I’ve used private urgent care in London. Annoyingly the nearest one to me closed as it wasn’t making enough money. Brilliant if eg you need a few stitches or an X-ray to check if something is a break or a sprain. Some of the private urgent cares are particulaly rammed on Saturday afternoons with private school sports fixtures injuries, avoiding a 5 hour wait for X-ray at the local nhs hospital. I now tend to use online private gp for most things now though.

But I’m not stupid enough to think that I could use either private facility (online or private ED) for a suspected heart attack or stroke!

I am an A&E nurse at a regular inner city trauma centra A&E and we have had a few "celebrities" in. Footballers being the stand out. They are whisked into a side room as the department is chaos mosat of the time anyway, add a recogniseable face to the mix and it would be uncontrollable. Its in the best interests of everyone to have them moved to somewhere private and it not be widely known they are there. They are treated, though would face the same waits as everyone else if a big trauma came in or someone went into cardiac arrest etc, same waits on investigations, radiography reports. Then transport is arranged after we have patched them up to which ever private hospital they are going to. So if they need ortho, they are getting that much quicker, but they wouldnt be seeing that NHS specialist, they have access to their own. We just give that initial stabilising treatment. So yes, they skip queues, but they are not necessarily getting faster treatments or investigations via NHS services. Their bloods, CT's. xrays etc take the same amount of time as everyone else.

I was bluelighted straight to resus with pneumonia, presumably because the infection had sent my heart rate into the stratosphere- not that I realised that at the time.

I have to say that the NHS care I received during my 3 weeks in hospital was excellent - I was grateful enough to make a fairly hefty donation to the hospital afterwards. This was nearly 3 years ago now.

Tbf i dont consider this the same as a 'celebrity'. I'm no Bojo fan but at the time he was the serving prime minister. There's a lot of protocol around what happens when the PM is temporarily unable to perform their role which he was. Absolutely it's right that every effort would be made to minimise the length of time the prime minister is incapacitated for, given the transfer of powers to a deputy in the interim. It's not just a celebrity - it was our serving leader of government.

I don’t know if anyone else ever watched Blacklist but I always found it fascinating that Raymond basically had his own field hospital set up and drs who’d drop everything to do to a set location. I’ve often wondered if there are people out there with similar and very expensive set-ups. I’ve pondered whether setting up a private ambulance service would be a good business model. You’d basically want experienced staff who were still working in the nhs to keep up experience but perhaps roster people one day a week at very nice rates and then guarantee super response times for anyone needing the service. You’d have to run the numbers as you’d need a small catchment area, wealthy people paying a fee on retainer and big enough numbers to make it cost effective.

Realistically, a lot of stuff could be picked up by a private GP/urgent care but if I had a stroke or trauma I’d want to be going to one of the nhs specialist centres to get stabilised regardless of how much money. If you were mega rich you’d most definitely want to be paying for a private wing for recovery.

urgent care is provided by private providers. so for a cut and graze or even a broken foot that's covered.

what's not is icu and complex surgery

Royals and billlionaires etc have their own doctors who attend them at home

When I was a Student Nurse doing my stint in A&E a very famous American performer came in from the festival where they were appearing and insisted that they wait like everyone else.

The main difference is, I think, how you arrive at A&E.

1. Most people arrive, not knowing what is wrong with them (excluding the obvious fractures etc). They need to be assessed by a reception-team(on reported symptoms), then a doctor (on clinical signs), and then they are triaged. These are the people that get the pleasure of sitting in the waiting room as there are almost always higher priority cases.
2. Some people arrive having been told by the surgery to get themselves there pronto. They still get assessed, generally because the referral is about the surgery's inability to treat, not because their condition is immediately life-threatening.
3. Blue-lit in an ambulance. These people have already been assessed by paramedics and so they bypass the first step and will often get the doctor's assessment immediately on arrival so the ambulance can depart.
4. Pre-arranged intake with a well-qualified and respected doctor who has the full medical history of the patient. This is where the rich/famous score over us plebs. If such a doctor says to A&E "this person is suffering a MI" then A&E will take their word for it and whip them straight into a cubicle as if they'd been blue-lit. This cohort are never going to be sitting around in a waiting room. While it seems like queue-jumping, there's some common sense here, especially if that person comes with a coterie of others (such as security staff) who would also need to be clogging up the waiting room.

As far as I know a private medical facility in Belfast has it's own A&E if I am remembering correctly. Dh was sent there by the NHS for a colonoscopy. Excuse spelling. I do remember seeing a sign for an emergency service. Though that is a few years ago.

There’s no private (proper)? A&E but we have BuPA insurance and we can urgently speak to a GP online without it affecting our premiums. We’re not wealthy though, but can host about afford private healthcare..

I’m very very lucky to have private medical cover of a high level owing to an expat work package but even that doesn’t cover maternity care - I had to pay in. I have used private GPs but didn’t know there were private walk-in clinics for bigger issues like broken legs? Do they have all the equipment etc?

There are a few in London e.g. at the Wellington and st john and Elizabeth

A&E services don’t make money for hospitals (private or otherwise), quite the opposite. None of the private healthcare providers have ever expressed an interest in taking on / over A&E provision from the NHS.

Probably because it would bankrupt them AND they’d have to take on all the costs of teaching the new doctors and consultants that currently ‘moonlight’ from the NHS.

I would much rather personally any VIP etc just get pushed to the front of the queue I don't fancy the press coming into the unit and accidentally getting caught on their photos or the safety aspects of it all. No thanks.

I can't imagine a celebrity needing a&e unless they were literally dying, like found collapsed on the street and someone called an ambulance. They would get referred directly to speciality by their private doctor and be admitted straight to a ward, probably in a private hospital.

Oh I had a marvellous evening visiting a friend in there once. They gave me a restaurant quality dinner. Then the drinks trolley came round. "Of course you can smoke, here's an ashtray". Late 80s I think.

I would happily have visited for weeks but she was discharged the next day, dammit.

It depends on where you are and whether you've given this situation thought. Can't comment on the private A&E facilities as it's not something I've personally seen.

HNWIs tend to have medics on call 24/7, so whatever happens, they call a number and either their own doctor or someone connected is able to provide the service at their place of residence. It will also depend on the individual, e.g. someone that is more prone to emergencies will usually have this in place, someone who is generally very healthy and hasn't considered it may not have it.

HOWEVER. If it's a huge emergency, e.g. heart attack, something that needs an immediate fully equipped medical crew etc, personally in this situation with HNWIs I'd have still called an ambulance. Also, if they are away from home, eg their doctor is in London and they're in Scotland or abroad where their medical team has no coverage, they may also need to go down the 'normal' route if it's very time sensitive.

Source of information: several family members are doctors that provide such services, e.g. occasionally they take a call and disappear go off to attend an at-home emergency appointment. Ex had a doctor on call in this manner, we were advised to always contact our doctor with anything, any time of the day, he'd either advise on the phone or come over. The doctor was directly employed by the company on a part-time basis.

2 things IMHO should be equal in life. Health and education.

There’s a private wing for people with money in an NHS hospital near where I live!

VIP treatment.
The Head of Hospital gets a phone call notifying them of imminent arrival. Message urgently cascades down, and the VIP is whisked straight into Majors or Resus via the service entrance.
Qualifications. Been there done it.

I actually know someone who is incredibly famous and wealthy who spent 12 hours in a and e before Christmas. So definitely depends what's wrong I think. This was something that needed hospital admission.

Sophie Wessex was raced to hospital with Louise - in a bad way in premature labour, and the ambulance took a while to turn up.

From doing child care for uhnw some have own medical centre which include icu beds and approximately qualified medical and nursing staff on 3 month rotations.

all have own private drs who do home visits, never saw an emergency situation but I would imagine that after initial home assessment they would be transferred directly onto a private ward