Cycling UK Forum

Wish to keep cycling etc, etc. Have found the NHS a joke (Nb. Other than emergency services), wonder if anyone has found a means to directly purchase medical care ? (Nb. Directly paid Dr's consultations etc, not "medical insurance")

Have quotes at present £79 / 15 minutes, £140 for 30 minutes. Am currently arranging initial consultations, merely wonder what others experience is (Nb.

I strongly recommend checking in advance if there will be any costs in addition to that quoted for the consultation.

And, as always, writing down your questions in advance so that you don't forget any.

Jonathan

Oh,thanks. It'll be a £200 for attending etc, etc, with travel costs

Jdsk wrote: ↑18 Jun 2024, 3:25pm I strongly recommend checking in advance if there will be any costs in addition to that quoted for the consultation.

gbnz wrote: ↑18 Jun 2024, 3:31pm Oh,thanks. It'll be a £200 for attending etc, etc, with travel costs
...

I was thinking of their billable costs rather than your consequent costs: clinical investigations, prescriptions, medical supplies and consumables etc.

Jonathan

gbnz wrote: ↑18 Jun 2024, 3:20pm wonder if anyone has found a means to directly purchase medical care ? (Nb. Directly paid Dr's consultations etc, not "medical insurance")

Do an Interweb search for a private practitioner, but of course much will depend on what the problem is.
Last time I went private instead of "the firm" was a simple case of overdoing some trail maintenance so nothing complicated and a local osteopath let me throw a moderate amount of money at it and not wait. He gave me some useful exercises and gave things a helping hand, I got better a bit quicker than I'd have managed on my own and slightly poorer, everyone was ahead. More complex things may not work that easily, and as soon as hospital care is involved you'll be looking at pretty serious money.

Private options may appear via the NHS, my sister went through NHS for diagnosis, minor procedure required, wait ages or pay £x for private, so as she had the £x she went private.

Pete.

What are you looking for, quicker treatment or a second opinion? I'm sure they're fine for the former, but my experience of the latter is that they don't want to know.

Re: Private GP: I have used what used to be the telephone GP consultation thing that used to be called Babylon on several occasions several years ago (when I was live-in care for my parents) and they were not terribly useful. Nothing to do with the GP on the phone but just a limitation of them not being able to see and interact face-to-face/examine the patient. But during pandemic a lot of GP telephone consultations worked so maybe much depends on what they are being consulted about.

Re: Private Consultants: I have a fair amount of personal experience with this on a self-funding basis (no insurance) for a condition and have used 3 different consultants from 3 different hospitals and they ranged from beyond excellent to pretty useless. condition I suffered from was debilitating (for significant amount of time) and:
1st consultant I used was pretty useless, on several occasions diagnosing the problem only to then get (private) test results and find he was wrong and (maybe fortunately). Main problem is he has a narrow specialty within ENT and just kept diagnosing as his pet interest/specialty based on nothing beyond that his personal interest.
2nd consultant: was recommended by members from this forum and was brilliant. No guesswork, did tests, analysed test results made further checks and diagnosed as far as possible. As he was distant from where I live he scheduled and booked appointment and tests immediately after each other so I could travel have consultation, then test then consultation same trip. It did take a couple of trips for him to diagnose and sort treatment but consultations were actually very reasonable (I thought surprisingly cheap) given he is probably the UK's leading authority on my problem.
3rd consultant: was more of trying to pursue a cure. 2nd consultant diagnosed but only possible to diagnose to the level of a condition defined by symptoms that could be due to multiple causes and whilst 2nd consultant's treatment alleviated the condition the cause in my case kept relapsing. 3rd consultant was just a single consultation which I didn't pursue as he didn't seem very motivated and it was a bit of a waste of time as in "I could put a camera up your nose to see what is going on but not sure it would help ... so overall not helpful

Also, in relation to the same condition when trying to identify the cause I had a private (self-funding) consultation with a rare infectious disease specialist. It was an expensive consultation but consultant was good but needed blood tests done so wrote to my GP asking for the tests and my GP "wasn't cooperative". I ended-up managing to get some of the blood tests done privately but many were not available anywhere privately so didn't get done and without those test results couldn't progress the investigation.

So, in summary. Variable results and no real way of knowing how it will work out before spending the money. If spending your own money recognise that it might not meet your expectations and be prepared to try more than one. My only suggestion depending on the area of private healthcare you are considering) would be to join a UK based support group for the condition and ask them for any recommendations. In my case I was fortunate to find others (members on this forum) who had experience of the issues and made recommendations that were excellent.

EDIT: Recognise before starting self-funded private consultations that you might come away feeling the money was wasted or you may not. But accept the risk before you start and if you think it's wasted make sure you can shrug and carry on with life happy ie don't then spend weeks in a rage lamenting lost wasted money spending hours on review sites giving negative stars. Accept in advance it's a risk that might or might not work and get on with life if it doesn't.

Ian

I should also add: My GP practice did not seem to want to cooperate with private consultants. eg the excellent consultant (mentioned in my previous post) started me on some prescription medication, 1st 2 weeks covered by a private prescription he gave me but he wrote to my GP asking him to continue the medication. The cost of fulfilling the private prescription at my pharmacy was less than £10 (so really cheap medication) but my GP would then only prescribe a half dose (which the consultant said was a waste of time and never used). So medication discontinued thanks to GP not cooperating. The infections disease specialist wrote to my GP asking for a number of blood tests but my GP did not cooperate and after loads and loads of pressure from me eventually did one or two but quite a few not done so could not progress the investigation (some tests not available privately).

How successful any private treatment is might also depend on how cooperative your NHS GP is.

Other GPs can be very cooperative eg when I was live-in caring for my Mum (who had private medical insurance from my Dad's employer), at one point the GP wanted to refer her to a consultant and he said if he made an NHS referral it would go to the department and she might get to see any of the consultants from that department but one was far better than the rest and could be seen privately so he asked if we wanted him to write a referral letter to see that consultant privately (with health insurance GP referral letter is mandatory for the insurance company). So that GP was very cooperative with private consultants - so it's a variable thing.

Ian

Psamathe wrote: ↑18 Jun 2024, 5:05pm Re: Private GP: I have used what used to be the telephone GP consultation thing that used to be called Babylon on several occasions several years ago (when I was live-in care for my parents) and they were not terribly useful. Nothing to do with the GP on the phone but just a limitation of them not being able to see and interact face-to-face/examine the patient.

I had an account with Babylon, but their response to everything I asked was "go and ask your GP". When I said I was looking for an independent opinion the said "We're all NHS doctors anyway", so I didn't bother renewing when it expired.

My first experience of the private sector was a request for a report on some ECGs from a professor in London, and he was happy to do it for £50. He didn't ask why I wanted it, so I don't know whether that would have made any difference, but other requests for second opinions have been met with non-cooperation, including from the same hospital where I got the ECG report. One consultant I enquired with refused to see me unless I was referred by my GP.

I should also add: My GP practice did not seem to want to cooperate with private consultants

I wouldn't make any assumptions. The complexities of their interaction take some understanding. For example, I recently went to my nhs gp to ask about a condition and was referred to a specialist, in what might be described as the usual way. The specialist, a surgeon, identified the condition, offered a procedure which I accepted and put me on the hospital waiting list. The hospital and its staff is private, although I didn't ask to 'go private'. This is called an internal market. Thus I conclude that gps and their managing practices are very used to cooperating with private consultants...

simonineaston wrote: ↑18 Jun 2024, 6:09pm ...
For example, I recently went to my nhs gp to ask about a condition and was referred to a specialist, in what might be described as the usual way. The specialist, a surgeon, identified the condition, offered a procedure which I accepted and put me on the hospital waiting list. The hospital and its staff is private, although I didn't ask to 'go private'. This is called an internal market. Thus I conclude that gps and their managing practices are very used to cooperating with private consultants...

Was that an NHS referral to the private provider?

The "internal market" of the NHS in England includes both referrals to NHS providers and to private providers.

Jonathan

simonineaston wrote: ↑18 Jun 2024, 6:09pm

I should also add: My GP practice did not seem to want to cooperate with private consultants

I wouldn't make any assumptions. The complexities of their interaction take some understanding. For example, I recently went to my nhs gp to ask about a condition and was referred to a specialist, in what might be described as the usual way. The specialist, a surgeon, identified the condition, offered a procedure which I accepted and put me on the hospital waiting list. The hospital and its staff is private, although I didn't ask to 'go private'. This is called an internal market. Thus I conclude that gps and their managing practices are very used to cooperating with private consultants...

Not cooperating I was describing was when private consultant I arranged and paid for independently from GP, consultant writes to GP reporting results fof consultation "I saw this patient, carried out examination finding x, y and z indicating patient is suffering a, b and c. I have privately prescribed <x> at a dose of <y>. I would ask you continue this prescription after the 2 week private prescription to continue the treatment for the diagnosed condition" and GP decides despite the trivial cost of the prescription he'll only prescribe half the requested dose!

Ian

Jdsk wrote: ↑18 Jun 2024, 6:17pm Was that an NHS referral to the private provider?

I don't know. The conversations I had both with the gp and the surgeon included no discussion on the topic of sector or payment. As far as I recall, the focus of both interactions was solely clinical. Soon after the gp appointment, I did receive in the post a parcel of papers which included, in helpfully enormous print, a list of sites that I could choose from to attend to see the specialist. It's entirely possible that amongst the sheaf of papers was an explanation of the way the referral might be dealt with, with respect to private and nhs locations. I simply selected on the basis of a) inspection grading and b) geographical convenience.

Psamathe wrote: ↑18 Jun 2024, 5:05pm different hospitals and they ranged from beyond excellent to pretty useless. condition I suffered from was debilitating

Thanks for all detailed response, particularly yours in detail. Will be reading through, reviewing in detail.

A note on uselessness vs wondrousness, reinforcing what Psamathe said...

At the end of the day it's a lot about the particular people you come across, modified by the situations they're in, as to how good treatment you'll get.
My particular branch of "the firm", NHS Tayside, has a recurring stain from the disgraced neurosurgeon Sam Eljamel (see, for example, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66739377) so obviously all is far from perfect... but my son has hydrocephalus and has had quite a bit of treatment in the same department and it has been bombastically good on all levels, not only probably life-saving but setting up for trouble free day to day life.

I note that there's no clear boundary between private and NHS as regards to the "who". The main thing you ensure is better by paying is how fast you can access specialists, though if there's someone who is known to be good in the particular area you're needing help paying money can give you a choice of who you see too.

Pete.