Private vs NHS

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Nethermoor

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I'm lucky, and I know how lucky I am (I really do). I have private healthcare through work.

Today I booked a GP appointment privately at 9.45am. The appointment was at 12.20. No waiting and I was straight on with the Doctor. Admittedly this isn't in person, it's video. But you'll see why that's not an issue in a minute.

I was referred for an MRI scan. 2 minutes after the appointment I had to agree to a referral in the app. 10 minutes later the MRI place called me and booked me an appointment to have an MRI scan this evening at 5.40.

Less than 1 working day. Even with private I never imagined it would be so quick.

I called my own GP beforehand and was told they have no appointments and to keep calling every day for an emergency appointment.

I don't know what I'm trying to get at. But if you can ever afford to pay private or get it via work etc then use it. It's always been amazing for me the handful of times I've used it.
 
Nethermoor said:
I'm lucky, and I know how lucky I am (I really do). I have private healthcare through work.

Today I booked a GP appointment privately at 9.45am. The appointment was at 12.20. No waiting and I was straight on with the Doctor. Admittedly this isn't in person, it's video. But you'll see why that's not an issue in a minute.

I was referred for an MRI scan. 2 minutes after the appointment I had to agree to a referral in the app. 10 minutes later the MRI place called me and booked me an appointment to have an MRI scan this evening at 5.40.

Less than 1 working day. Even with private I never imagined it would be so quick.

I called my own GP beforehand and was told they have no appointments and to keep calling every day for an emergency appointment.

I don't know what I'm trying to get at. But if you can ever afford to pay private or get it via work etc then use it. It's always been amazing for me the handful of times I've used it.
Click to expand...
For every good story there is a contra. I have had private for most my working life through work and still retain a policy which we will probably let go when it renews. Mrs S has had both hips replaced on private. I have had two or three bits of treatment over the years. First thing to say is that the older you get, the more expensive it gets. Big hikes at every renewal until it becomes too expensive. Second is that much like the NHS you get a variety of experiences. Private nursing in our experience is inconsistent and varies between brilliant and potentially harmful. Profit is king with private and I have experienced that through tests and treatment that shouldn’t have been given. We had a big health incident last year which was treated 100% by NHS and it varied from piss poor communication from an arrogant twat of a consultant to bloody marvellous by a team of radiographers.
I am torn as I believe in giving folk freedom of choice but whilst the private sector thrives it always acts as a risk to the NHS. Chipping away and privatising piece by piece.
 
Nethermoor said:
I'm lucky, and I know how lucky I am (I really do). I have private healthcare through work.

Today I booked a GP appointment privately at 9.45am. The appointment was at 12.20. No waiting and I was straight on with the Doctor. Admittedly this isn't in person, it's video. But you'll see why that's not an issue in a minute.

I was referred for an MRI scan. 2 minutes after the appointment I had to agree to a referral in the app. 10 minutes later the MRI place called me and booked me an appointment to have an MRI scan this evening at 5.40.

Less than 1 working day. Even with private I never imagined it would be so quick.

I called my own GP beforehand and was told they have no appointments and to keep calling every day for an emergency appointment.

I don't know what I'm trying to get at. But if you can ever afford to pay private or get it via work etc then use it. It's always been amazing for me the handful of times I've used it.
Click to expand...
I went private to get diagnosed on an issue. My GP fobbed me off for ages but eventually I was offered a referral to an ENT consultant however the wait time was 6+ months+ and any treatment was 6+ months from there. I looked up a private ENT consultant who ran an ENT clinic and got an appointment within a week. Luckily my work healthcare plan paid for it as I get an allowance spend per year.

Unfortunately my allowance covered the consultation but it wasn't enough to cover treatment and I can't afford to pay for that fully privately. My ENT has referred me back through the NHS (referred me to him!) and now I'm waiting again, at least I've saved 6 months wait for the consultation.

At the moment if you want to be seen quickly then private is the way to go. A lot of people think that doctors are working full time in the NHS but that's just not true. Most NHS consultants pop into hospitals on odd days in the week but the rest of the time they're running private clinics or doing personal work such as teaching.

A lot of people will blame the government but what do you do? Will a doctor accept being forced onto the graded NHS salary structure and give up earning 6 figures in the private sector? At the moment they can get the flexible guaranteed NHS work and then the private work more than tops that up.

Would a dentist want the same? That's why you can't get an NHS dental appointment either.
 
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Collegue at work needs surgery on his back. In constant agony and it's affecting his job.

The NHS stated that they would only perform the surgery if he reached the target weight of 10 stones (he's about 14st) and must stay at that weight for about a year, during which they'd perform a number of various tests to ensure he could have the treatment, all in all he was told he would need to wait about 18 months before they did the surgery.

He's chosen to go private as he gets paid sick time off, but it's going to cost him £6500. He's scheduled for surgery at the end of this month. What a wonderful system we have.
 
Going private is what the govn want. They fuck things up... NHS, BBC, immigration etc, to get what they want, rid of them. I will never go private, I will always fight for the NHS.

I used to get it through work and it was like a different world, straight in and operation done. No delays, no strikes, no fights in the corridor or poor standard equipment, they just got the operation done.

Its what the NHS should be and thats what this fkin govn should be delivering, instead of the wrecking ball approach to stuff they are too posh to appreciate. Toffee nosed fuckers, and their toffee-arse licking voters.
 
The NHS seems to vary dramatically based upon where you live. I was unlucky enough a few years ago to trip up coming off the escalator at Victoria station in London at rush hour which resulted in a fully dislocated shoulder. As a result I was taken to St Thomas' (The Hospital Nearest the Houses of Parliament). Its was absolutely fantastic, within 20 mins I had been admitted, examined and was going for an X ray. In less than 1.5 hours of going in they had put my shoulder back in, done a second set of X rays and stitched the cut on my hand.

Compare that to my mam being taken in a year ago to a local hospital after falling, 93yr old and it took 4hrs to see anyone and then a further 6hrs to get a bed. This was a Tuesday at 11am, so not exactly a peak time.

It really shouldn't be like that.

For the last 20yrs Ive had private health cover for me and my family as a benefit from work (I just have to pay the tax element) but have yet to use it other than for a bit of physio on my shoulder.
 
Metal Biker said:
Collegue at work needs surgery on his back. In constant agony and it's affecting his job.

The NHS stated that they would only perform the surgery if he reached the target weight of 10 stones (he's about 14st) and must stay at that weight for about a year, during which they'd perform a number of various tests to ensure he could have the treatment, all in all he was told he would need to wait about 18 months before they did the surgery.

He's chosen to go private as he gets paid sick time off, but it's going to cost him £6500. He's scheduled for surgery at the end of this month. What a wonderful system we have.
Click to expand...

How tall is he?
 
I have an umbilical hernia and saw the GP a couple of weeks ago. He said he would refer me for an operation. Three days ago I received a text from the referral unit asking to ring them.
Did so today, the girl went through a list of all the hospitals in Greater Manchester and I asked which had the shortest wait times, unfortunately they don't know that information.
I picked a hospital which my partner could drive to (sadly she's a crap driver) when the girl said that she could offer me a apt at a private hospital which could do it, providing that I didn't have co morbidities, like a fool I said book me in. Apt made for 4 week's hence.
I then googled it and and discovered I have at least 5... I always thought it meant something that was life threatening. Guess I will be back on the merry go round sooner than I expected.
 
I had my MRI yesterday.

3 days I will have my results.

My mum who is in remission for Cancer has yearly checkups and her MRI's are booked in 3-4 weeks in advance and regularly get moved about. And It takes weeks to get the results.

This is no dig at the NHS by the way. It's not their fault... we all know who's to blame really.
 
Metal Biker said:
Collegue at work needs surgery on his back. In constant agony and it's affecting his job.

The NHS stated that they would only perform the surgery if he reached the target weight of 10 stones (he's about 14st) and must stay at that weight for about a year, during which they'd perform a number of various tests to ensure he could have the treatment, all in all he was told he would need to wait about 18 months before they did the surgery.

He's chosen to go private as he gets paid sick time off, but it's going to cost him £6500. He's scheduled for surgery at the end of this month. What a wonderful system we have.
Click to expand...
Not quite as bad as your colleague but I had a frozen shoulder for about six months that was very painful and disrupted everything I did. Went through lots of tests on private MRI, etc etc to be told they had found some old damage to a vertebrae and the pain must be from that. My expensive consultants advice was to grit my teeth and get used to the pain. I was even offered a bloody pai clinic at an extortionate cost.
Had 4 sessions at acupuncture which cost me £80 and it was permanently cured.
 
Nethermoor said:
I had my MRI yesterday.

3 days I will have my results.

My mum who is in remission for Cancer has yearly checkups and her MRI's are booked in 3-4 weeks in advance and regularly get moved about. And It takes weeks to get the results.

This is no dig at the NHS by the way. It's not their fault... we all know who's to blame really.
Click to expand...

My Mum had the same with her cancer treatment. Pushed between two different hospitals with an oncologist who worked 2 days in one, 1 day in the other and 2 days private. One consultation between the different specialists a week and always someone missing which meant huge delays. She had a surgeon suggesting one thing, an oncologist saying something else and it was so piss poor. She was once called at 3am to say results of a test she'd done a week before had come back with extreme results so she needed to urgently get to A&E. So my Dad took her in. She sat in the waiting room for 4 hours before they then got her into another waiting room as she waited for a bed to be available. Absolutely no strategic thinking. Why call a woman who was basically on end of life care to come in at 3am - surely you know there's no fucking room for them!

My Mrs meanwhile has been going through private for a breathing issue she has had for a while. It's so quick, very well organised and people speak to each other. And these people work for the NHS too. But that's part of the problem.

The government urgently need to get some experts, and I mean experts - not some fella from their pub, to go and review the NHS. There's plenty of money to be saved if they look at it properly. Waste being the critical one. There's so much waste which means they're essentially throwing money away.

I recognise there are a lot of people in the country and a huge backlog but they need to recruit heavily to bring in more.

My Mum might still be alive if things were different. Probably not, but maybe. And tens of thousands will have died because of delays. Get recruitment going! Get all of these migrants into training and get them working in the NHS! The answer isn't cheap, but it needs to happen.

The NHS is well celebrated in this country. It's something to be proud of. The majority stood and clapped NHS workers during covid, before Boris fucked them and didn't give them any more money. Would people mind spending an extra couple of quid a week to help fund it? I certainly wouldn't.
 
Fuck me you were in for an MRI that fast! I need a yearly MRI and the amount of fucking about the NHS put me through is crazy. And the flipping machine is about 30 years old. I always think the amount of dirty money swishing about in this city and they can't afford another 1 mil for a flipping MRI machine! The private system relies on the NHS machine so private patients get bumped up the que at the expense of the plebs
 
I'm With Stupid said:
Yes a lot of people will blame the government because that's exactly who is to blame.
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What is the answer though? It seems for many the only answer when it come to the NHS is a blank cheque but even that will never be enough.

NHS spending is well above average globally and is on par with the rest of Europe who have far superior systems, we should be doing better with what we have.

For me the NHS represents the same as most infrastructure in the UK, it suffers under it's own weight because it is old and decrepid, some things are still based upon practices that haven't changed since WW2. It needs a total rethink, root and stem.

public-health-expenditure-share-GDP-OWID.png
 
One thing that needs pointing out is that the consultants you see privately are the exact same ones you see through the NHS. The hospitals might be nicer but the clinical side is exactly the same and the NHS has the most advanced kit and the broadest range. If something goes wrong in a private hospital you often end up with the NHS fixing the issue.

Private hospitals are just a way of paying to jump the queue. And we only have horrendous queues because of decades of tory mismanagement. Many tories would love to scrap the NHS. Running it into the ground is the only way that idea ever becomes credible as the best health care systems in the world are all modeled on what the NHS was and should be.
 
inbetween said:
What is the answer though? It seems for many the only answer when it come to the NHS is a blank cheque but even that will never be enough.

NHS spending is well above average globally and is on par with the rest of Europe who have far superior systems, we should be doing better with what we have.
Click to expand...

Sophistry and dishonesty. Who cares how the NHS compares to El Salvador or Botswana?

The NHS in England/UK hasn't increased it's spending to meet demand for its services due to an aging population, where as European countries of comparable wealth and demographics have.

inbetween said:
For me the NHS represents the same as most infrastructure in the UK, it suffers under it's own weight because it is old and decrepid, some things are still based upon practices that haven't changed since WW2. It needs a total rethink, root and stem.

public-health-expenditure-share-GDP-OWID.png
Click to expand...

. The UK has fewer doctors and nurses​

Another area where the UK is strikingly different to comparator countries is in staffing. The below chart shows fewer doctors and fewer nurses per 1,000 people than the average in our basket. While some countries do, for example, have fewer nurses, many counterbalance that by having more doctors. The UK is remarkable as it scores low on both. High vacancy rates and staff dissatisfaction show that the current number is insufficient.

www.kingsfund.org.uk

Comparing the NHS to the health care systems of other countries: five charts

Saoirse Mallorie pulls out just five measures to illustrate the mixed bag of findings from our new report, which analyses how the NHS compares to the health care systems of other countries.
www.kingsfund.org.uk www.kingsfund.org.uk
 
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