Massive NHS MRI wait - has anyone used scan.com or similar?

[Towmcir]

I’m currently waiting for a brain MRI (since February) and I’ve just received a letter rearranging it from June to August!

Whilst I appreciate it’s not a medical emergency, it’s constantly on my mind and I just want a bit clarity. I don’t have private medical insurance, but I’m happy to pay if I can afford to.

Ideally I want just a scan and report, not lots of pre and follow up care, and to just keep this outside of the NHS pathway so leaving that waiting list untouched in case I’m unhappy with the private route for whatever reason.

scan.com seems to offer an MRI and report for approx £500 which seems like a bargain if it actually stops me worrying for 6 months.

Has anyone had a self-referred scan through scan.com? It all seems a bit too good to be true…

I made a scan appointment application via them and paid 450 as having a lot of issues with NHS doing cancer follow up checks. Then the NHS said they would do I cancelled it and scan UK refunded minus 50. 2 months later still nothing from NHS so trying scan UK again. Though not charged this time but said they can't do if on cancer pathway. Explained not it's for reoccurrence and they are checking. Think it's a genuine company and genuine scans.

I think the scan people will need you to have a doctor to receive and interpret your results - I think it’s unlikely that they’d just release the report directly to you with you having no background in interpreting MRI results of the brain. Your own GP would not necessarily have the skillset to interpret an MRI of the brain and correlate that with your clinical picture.

I have recently been in a similar situation, where I have had two elevated prolactin blood test results - implications are possibly a pituitary tumour. I establish that these are typically cared for by Endocrinology, so I booked a private Endocrinology appointment to see a consultant at my local private hospital (£200), went to my consultation on Tuesday this week, he requested some blood tests (further £300 approx) and has requested an MRI Brain with contrast (£420 for MRI and a further £128 for the contrast medium) - this is booked for the coming Tuesday (less than 1 week from my original appointment) - it means that I will have a specialist in place to review the scan and blood results and then will book a follow up consultation to receive those and discuss next steps which may be medication, etc.

If I do turn out to have a pituitary tumour, then this means that I’ll have got myself past the initial waiting list/diagnostic bottleneck in the NHS pathway, and my GP can update NHS endocrine to say “Patient has confirmed prolactinoma on private MRI, medication initiated in private hospital” and I’ll get moved into a different queue to be taken over/followed up by NHS endocrine as I’d be a confirmed Endocrine patient, rather than a suspected one. This can work especially well if you select a consultant at the private hospital who also works at the local NHS hospital you’ve been referred to as they will ask thier secretary to pull your notes from the pile and move you into the correct one for NHS follow up.

I did the same thing when I had a long wait for cardiology but very debilitating symptoms. It cost about £1000 in initial consultations/investigations but expedited my return to good health hugely.

Here’s an example of the typical language used in reporting an MRI of your brain - it’s really not as simple as you being able to read the report and immediately know what’s condition you do or don’t have. There’s lots of references to the different types of MRI signal used to view different areas/structures and they all have different meanings.

You need to have an appropriately skilled clinician overseeing your care.

I had an MRI scan from Vista just before Easter. £365 for within a week & report within 3 working days, £345 for a slight weight & £250 for within 6 weeks. You can self refer & get a copy of the report. You can also pay either £40 or £50 to have a consultation with a GP afterwards. This was for a 3 Tesla MRI, more detailed than some.

For scan.com, it looks as though they give you a very basic level report (using something called scanslated, which explains every term).

I think I’m quite torn because if they did find anything the “aftercare” would be minimal and I’d still be in the NHS system to probably wait for their diagnosis separately, so not actually gaining anything if there is a problem.

I’m not sure how much stock an NHS clinician would put in these scans either (they do say copies of scans are provided) or if the quality is just not worth having.

It feels like my life is on hold at the minute, but I’m still not sure whether to try to push on and get some peace of mind privately or just try to wait it out and trust the NHS pathway.

I would have a think about the option I’ve suggested above, of booking a private appointment with an appropriate specialist in the first instance and get the initial stuff checked. If they find anything they will happily write to your GP and implore them to act on significant findings - and that’s hard for your GP to refuse when a consultant in the appropriate speciality is insisting it’s necessary.

When I went through it with cardiology my private consultant went to his NHS job the next day and literally said to his secretary “please locate this woman’s notes and move her from
the queue for first cardiology appointments, and put her in the queue for the arrythmia nurse as she has already had all tests and a diagnosis done privately” and I saw the NHS arrythmia nurse a week later. The secretary got all of my reports/scan results sent over from the private hospital and they were in my NHS file for the arrythmia nurse.

Thanks for your reply.

I didn’t mention in my initial post, but I’ve already seen the NHS specialist (neuro) and been referred by the specialist to get an MRI after their tests, it’s not a direct from GP referral.

I know why I’m being referred for scans and what the medical suspicion is (MS), and also know that in NHS terms this isn’t urgent as it’s life-long. However, waiting 6 months is huge to me as it obviously does impact me mentally wondering if there’s something that could be seen now to indicate MS (again, I’m very aware that just one MRI will not give me a diagnosis if it is).

If there’s signs of anything wrong, I’d find the money to pay for the private consultations necessary and potentially further MRI scans to get back in the NHS system.

I also forgot to say, I’ve looked into the NHS linked private consultants (the one I had an appointment with doesn’t do private) and the earliest I could get an appointment with them would be a month away, so partially defeats the problem of wanting this done ASAP to alleviate worries!

Well in that case I would ring the hospital that you’re under, ask to speak to secretary for your consultant so go through hospital switch and ask for “Mr Smith Neurology consultants secretary please” or just “neurology secretaries please” and explain to them that you want to pay for private MRI to expedite your care, how should I go about this, does Mr Smith need to write me a referral, or can I ask private provider to email the report to a secure email for you to put in front of him” etc.

I’m a nurse so have a little understanding of how best to handler the system to get what you need.

I didn’t know that this might be an option (effectively just paying to bump the scanning wait), although part of my concern is that I’ve heard you can often end up with a significant wait to get the scans interpreted and the findings relayed to you even after an NHS scan.

I’ll give the receptionist a call tomorrow to ask if I can do this as it does seem sensible to keep things in one place in case there is something that needs to be dealt with (and if there’s not, so that any further investigations can be made).

Is there a private hospital near you? Our local one does MRI scans from £345 (you can add a consultation appointment to discuss the results at an extra cost).

yes with NHS scans part of the current issues is a shortage of radiologists to interpret the scans. So even when you finally get the scan done, you effectively join another waiting list to have it looked at and reported on. Dh had his brain MRI done beginning of March, no signs of any report yet. No idea how it works in private, I suspect they outsource interpretation to an independent Company, sometimes those are abroad. Mind you the NHS do that as well.

I have used both scan.com and vista health.

Scan.com you get a follow up call with a doctor. Vista you just get your results emailed with no medical follow up. So it's fine but you need your imitative. Chat GPT is good for explaining MRI findings in layman's terms.

Also check out where you're having it done. Both these places use mobile scanners and one of the scans I had (of my foot) was such poor quality that they couldn't really use it.

If you are within the NHS system and are simply waiting on the radiology waiting list before anything else can happen - I absolutely would ask radiology for private appointment options - they do do them (I work alongside radiology and have had to deliver private procedures with them). The report will be expedited for interpretation by the radiologist within the cost usually. Hospitals usually have private services teams who facilitate all of it.

The most frustrating thing is the number of patients who DNA a day.

The lists are so long, staff are working 14 hr shifts in some places to try and catch up, but still some days maybe 8/10 people don't show up!

Pure selfishness.

That is totally unreasonable and a crazy lack of respect for the NHS. I’ve asked about being on a cancellation list or even attending and sitting waiting “just in case” there’s a no show but they’ve said it’s not possible.

@Towmcir It really is isn't it. Even worse, when I mentioned it to my surgeon he said some people will just DNA surgery on the day too!!!

I think this is what I’m scared of - a huge delay getting the scan in the first place, a wait for it to be interpreted and then a further delay to get the neurologist follow up appointment to relay the findings. The process could last ages and I’m going to be thinking of it every day until it’s done.