For those who have accessed private healthcare, do you find there is a big difference in speed and quality of care compared to NHS?

[Yappydogs]

I recently decided to book a private GP appointment owing to some ongoing health issues I've been having. It's the first time in my life that I've accessed private health treatment. It was regarding something that's been impacting my quality of life for a while. I was having tremendous difficulties getting an appointment with my NHS GP. At the practice I'm registered with, you have to jump through hoops backwards and blindfolded to even have a chance of getting an appointment. You can only get an FTF (face-to-face) appointment in what they deem to be exceptional circumstances. You also have to deal with receptionists gatekeeping you (and heaven forbid if it's an embarrassing problem, or just something you'd prefer to only discuss with the GP directly). They seemingly have an obsession with telephone appointments. I believe this is the norm now in England, but some practices seem to be worse for it than others.

With all of that mentioned, with the private appointment I had, the difference in how easy it was to make an appointment, and how I was dealt with upon attending, was night and day compared to the NHS. I booked a 30-minute appointment which gave me ample time to explain what my issues were. With the NHS it's a maximum of 10 minutes per appointment, and I've found that in reality it can often be less than that. I get the sense that they can't wait to get rid of you, and there is a sense of a revolving door when attending appointments. The GP I saw privately was very patient and understanding. I actually feel like I am getting somewhere now after being fobbed off for so long. I'm aware that it may well get expensive quite quickly as I don't have PMI, but I was prepared for that. I've been saving up for this appointment and subsequent ones that I might require. Do you think the old adage of "you get what you pay for" applies to healthcare as much as any other service or commodity?

The GP you saw privately will also be practicing in the NHS. You have had a longer appointment because you have paid privately for it. At an NHS GP’s surgery there are more people wanting an appointment than there are available. Telephone appointments are here to stay as the GP can do more appointments than f2f.

DH would have waited 5 years for a hernia op on the NHS.

With PMI he was in surgery within a fortnight of registering with a GP.

I’m needing 2 minor procedures. Being seen quickly and being able to book them for a time that suits me is so helpful.

Yes. I’ve given up on getting a GP appointment, it’s just impossible (practice doesn’t offer phone appointments nor an on line booking service) and on the off chance that you do? Whatever is actually going on is missed/dismissed/ignored. I use a private GP and find it really good value for money, all issues dealt with quickly and efficiently.
I do know other people who get excellent service from their GP so I don’t think it’s everywhere.

For GP appointments, our NHS GP is the bee’s knees and much easier to sort than a private GP. I also have no complaints about my NHS rheumatologist, always quick and easy. For surgery though, I’d always pick private.

I’ve used both for surgery. If there wasn’t such a long wait, it would be NHS for me every time. You get a private room and choose from a decent menu, privately but if anything goes wrong they can’t cope. Private hospitals run with minimum staff, especially at night, whereas the NHS hospitals have absolutely everything to hand.

Yes, the difference was astounding! I will go private whenever i am able to for healthcare. In my experience it was so much quicker and in a setting that was clean and uncrowded - staff were incredibly polite and I did not feel rushed at any point. My experience with the NHS has generally been dire - it seems staff are simply not paid enough to care anymore.

The ‘quality’ is the same ie the doctors who practice privately are also practising in the NHS however private is a hundred times more efficient as it is quick to access and you are seen by a specialist in the area you need in a much shorter space of time.

Having said that cancer care through the 2 week rule is usually just as good if not better via the NHS

Husband had a dodgy mole. Took 4 weeks for an NHS appointment to come through which was another 2 months away. Fortunately we had private healthcare and he'd had it removed befote the NHS sppointment came through. It was melanoma. Don't know how much worse it would have been with a 3 month delay.

You see this just isn't true. I spent longer on telephone consultations that face to face as you had to safety net a lot more as you didn't have a visual on the patient and don't get me started on examining them.
No GPs I knew did more shorter appointments because they were telephone.

If someone was phoning to discuss results that takes the same length of time on the phone as face to face.
I really don't get why GPs do loads of phone appointments...don't get me wrong some have their place but over 90% of what I saw I felt much happier with the patient Infront of me.

I have private healthcare through my job and had to use it for an operation on my knee. Id have had to wait a good few years on the nhs but it was 3 weeks instead. The lovely private room and not having nhs slop as food also made a difference. My mum was in a nhs hospital a few years ago and the cleanliness of the place was disgraceful and the food just looked vile. We ended taking her up food every day. The one day she did eat it she was sick from it!

I have a friend who has the same op , within 3 months or so ….,..

Yes - absolutely.

The waiting list for me to even see an ENT consultant was 18 months.

I went private, saw the consultant within a couple of weeks and had an MRI by the end of the month.

My son needed an operation to help with his hearing. 2 and a half year wait list. Went private, the op was done within the month.

Although, the breast clinic within my NHS Trust is fantastic. Been referred twice for a breast lump, seen twice within a week. I don’t even think I could be seen privately that quickly.

I go privately to a dentist. I have terrible phobia about dentists after some horrid NHS treatment, so stopped going for years - until driven by toothache, and contacted a private dentist who specialised with nervous patients. They were wonderful. Not judgemental, made sure I was OK, and helped me a lot. I still go to them

All the phone appointments I have had have resulted in bring asked to attend in person, so effectively resulting in two appointments.

I'm so incredibly grateful for my private healthcare. It's a different world, honestly.

Same here. There are plenty of supposed luxuries I would give up before my PHI. It really just levels the playing field and gives Brits the type of healthcare taken for granted in most of Europe. A clean hospital and polite staff should not be an optional extra.

I couldn’t even get a GP appointment to get onto the two week pathway. Apparently, finding a breast lump at 45 doesn’t make it a priority and I was expected to wait a month to even see a GP. I went private and had the entire thing sorted in less than a week.

I think for emergencies, cancer and children the NHS is still reliable and good. For anything else its 50/50 whether you get a good service, which is a shame as we are still paying for a service (its not free for those paying into the system).

My youngest adult child had so many pushbacks over a 4 month period from GPs and other professionals, was basically unable to live with any quality and had extreme health anxiety. We paid privately for MRIs and private consultants to get to the bottom of it within a month. She is getting much better now with support and medication thankfully. There WAS something wrong but was deemed a nuisance.

The biggest difference when going private to me is everything seems more joined up, presumably as there's a profit motive to make sure resources are used efficiently.

I’m currently under 3 different consultant specialities and waiting for a 4th. 2 of the 3 I would say the NHS is as good as the private, however appointments are not at my convenience and run very late so are very disruptive whereas private appointments I can book at my convenience and run on time.
One consultant isn’t as good as private- keeps trying to switch my treatment to save money despite it being contraindicated for me.

I have often gone private whilst I wait to be seen on the NHS, and see the same Dr privately and NHS.

I also found for DS as a baby private appointments were far more likely to look at him holistically- joining up the dots on eczema, asthma and allergies for example. Not one appointment one problem.

I get it through work and it's fantastic, instead of booking a GP appointment, I basically ask for an MRI due to issues, it gets approved, I get the MRI and the issue is sorted, I think before I was fannying about with GP appointments knowing there was an issue, trying meds or waiting for an MSK appt but getting nowhere when it was an issue that needed an op to rectify. I think most of us know what is wrong or what we want to be investigated for peace of mind.

I used a Bupa GP once and I can’t say the experience was any better than NHS, just quicker.

After I was diagnosed with endometriosis on the NHS I went privately for a laparoscopy. Only had to wait 6 weeks rather than the estimated 2 years on the NHS! The hospital was so much quieter than an NHS hospital and staff much less rushed. I will go private again for endo treatment, the NHS is no good for chronic conditions.

The quality going privately is night and day compared to the NHS, both for myself and the children. We always just use the private GP now, you can be seen at a time and date that works for you, I’ve had a child with an issue come up after school and we’ve had the GP appointment that evening, and that is standard, it’s excellent. I’ve had two major operations in the past two years, and am so grateful that I’ve had both privately. I had an emergency admission to an NHS hospital via A&E almost two years ago now, I had to stay four nights on morphine and antibiotics and it was awful. I am quite feisty in real life when I have to be, but I was dreadfully unwell and had no fight left in me I was in such pain, it took my usually meek as a mouse mum to advocate hard on my behalf to get me seen at A&E, and she said she only found the courage because she was genuinely scared by how ill I was. It shouldn’t be like that. It was an awful time, the standard of care was poor, it was unclean, really hideous. I’d give up a lot before I give up my PMI.

I think the skills of the staff are pretty much the same (indeed, they are often literally the same staff) but the difference is in the speed and smoothness with which your issue is dealt with. With the NHS you almost always get the sense that desperate, overworked staff are doing everything they can think of to keep you away - phone appointments, delays, hoops to jump through, waiting lists, short appointments etc. whereas with private it’s ’How nice to meet you! Please come in and tell us all your worries! (once you’ve entered your payment details).’

And obviously the physical fabric of the buildings is like night and day, and the staff in private facilities aren’t exhausted and stressed.

That said, I was really impressed by 2WW on the NHS. And of course there’s a reason private facilities almost never provide A&E.

I think the NHS is a bloody postcode lottery for primary care. I'm in London and can almost always see my NHS GP same day or next day if necessary. My very elderly and vulnerable parents however, live in the Midlands and seeing their GP is seemingly fucking impossible.

For hospital emergency care, the NHS is better. For elective non-emergency care, I can see why people go private and we have in the past. But so many don't have that option.