Nhs or Private Care.

I believe there was some controversy a while ago when it was revealed that private health companies were giving their customers substantial amounts of money if they they chose the NHS to carry out more expensive operations.

I have a friend who has totally comprehensive private health care. She has not had the best of health and neither has her husband, but interestingly neither of them use private hospital care or outpatient care for everything. They recognise that the NHS has expertise and clinical care that is far superior to anything the private system can offer. They are simply in the position to choose.

Like any other organisation, some hospitals are coping better than others. I expect that hospitals in areas of significant deprivation and more transient populations have greater challenges to deal with. I suppose it is natural that we tend to hear about what has gone wrong, and not so often about what has gone right. It is good to hear posters like Morghew who have been more than satisfied with the care they or their families have received under the NHS. That is not to deny that some people have received very poor care.

TyneAngel I can quite see why you have chosen to pay for private cataract operations, given that your poor sight has caused you accidents and is affecting many areas of your life. It is interesting what you say about the price of £2,000-£3,000 quoted four years ago and the current quote of £8,000. In 2013 the Mail reported that it costs the NHS £932 for the first eye and £808 for the second eye. Even if the cost has gone up since then, I doubt that it is anywhere near £8,000 - but private providers know that people will pay for the operations if they are desperate enough, even if they have to scrape the money together. As you say, not everyone can, and prices are likely to continue rising as more and more people are unable to get timely treatment on the NHS

The same report seems to reflect your own experience:

"Thousands of elderly people are being denied the chance to save their sight with vital cataract surgery.

"Patients in some areas have been told their vision is still ‘too good’ for an operation, even though their cataracts are so severe they cannot drive or read.

"Clara Eaglen, of the RNIB, said: ‘NHS “efficiency savings” achieved by cutting cataract operations are a false economy as denying treatment leaves patients at risk of depression, social isolation and fall-related hip fractures which are more costly to treat.’

Yet another example of short term savings that will cost dearly in the long term.

Unusual to get a letter that quickly, even when it was established that I had cancer I still waited more than a week for scan results.
Some of my hospital appointment letters didn't arrive before the date of appointment, thankfully someone thought it a good idea to ring me just in case.
Yours must be a good hospital pompa, hope you are okay, anything to do with the kidney is painful.

or perhaps I should be worried

Top marks for the NHS, I had a Nuclear renal scan at 9am yesterday, received a letter from hospital this morning booking me in for a CT scan. I phoned to see what was going on expecting that they had got a mix up. NO, the consultant had reviewed my scan results from Wednesday and requested a further CT scan, for which I got the appointment in the post today (Thursday).
I cannot see any private hospital improving on that.

We have had both private and nhs treatments over the years but at the end of my husband's life the insurance was not only outrageously expensive they wouldn't treat anything to do with his heart and as he had end stage heart failure that was the only thing we were likely to want help with. The nhs were amazing. The district nurse came to the house three times a week to change the dressings on his badly ulcerated legs. The doctor came to visit him at home. He had several stays in the hospital where he was cared for so beautifully with such kindness and compassion by very overworked staff and at the end he died in the Hospice (attached to the hospital). There are many problems with the nhs, but on the whole we are so very lucky to have such an amazing service.

I would not say that there were more staff in the Nuffield hospital where I had my hip replaced. They were all single rooms and if you pressed the buzzer then it would ring and ring till someone came and switched it off. All you could hear was the sound of these buzzers ringing and ringing endlessly. Sometimes a nurse would rush in and switch it off and say she would be back - but didn't come back on several occasions. A bit difficult when you need a bedpan! On one occasion a theatre nurse who was up on the floor was going round switching the buzzers off.

As for medical staff - there was one junior doctor on all the time, who seemed not to know how to deal with pain. One of the drugs they gave me made me ill; and they seemed to have no Plan B for someone who needed different pain relief.

I would not choose to go there again for surgery - for an outpatient appointment maybe, as usually that is quicker and you know that you will see the consultant and not someone who may not know what to do. It was seeing a registrar and not a consultant that resulted in my foot fractures being misdiagnosed - I kept telling him that I could not weight bear and all he would say is that it was just caused by where the plaster had been - I repeated endlessly that it did not feel the least like that but he just shrugged. So here I am using a stick now for the rest of my life.

My Dad is currently in an NHS hospital and I have had a hernia repair op this week in a private hospital. My Dad's care has been excellent, as was mine. I would say the only difference has been Dad was in a bay of four beds when first admitted and I had my own room. The care is the same but in the private hospital there are more staff.

Overall, even if I could afford private, wouldn't. Despite NHS funding problems, the treatment I've received has always been excellent and when MIL's sister was treated in private hospital, although the accommodation was plush and comfortable, the medical care was really diabolical (she ended up with MRSA), compared with what I and other family members have experienced in local NHS hospitals!

This is when private care comes into its own, when an ailment is considered non-urgent by the NHS.

Nfk no bunion can not be painful enough to need treating. ?

My experience of NHS v Private nursing care has been very little different. In some ways I prefer a ward to a private room. Private rooms get very boring after a few days. If (as I have been twice before) I am in for several weeks/months, give me the company and banter of a male ward.

I've had various relatively serious operations with both NHS and private care and have found the best was the private wing of the NHS hospital. Both used the same consultants but the NHS nursing care was so much better.

We stopped paying into private health insurance when the premiums leapt up when DH reached 60 and 'self insure' now. There's more than enough in the pot for hip replacements or similar - and we still have the cash if we manage to stay healthy. (I am thinking of using some for a bunion op as NHS say it's not bad/painful enough.)

I disagree that private care is always quicker. To have my knee replaced privately I had to wait 8 weeks to see the consultant I wanted. The waiting time at the local NHS hospital was only 5 weeks. But as I wanted a particular surgeon, I waited.
My very recent (ongoing) kidney problems have highlighted just how short waiting times now are.
My Dr, 16th March (seen immediately, without appointment)
U/S scan and blood tests 17th March
Hospital consultant 8th April
CT scan/renagram booked for 20th April

I doubt any private hospital in my area could have reacted any quicker. Possibly expensive London hospitals may have been a little quicker.

It is all very well criticising the failings of private hospitals, lack of intensive care facilities etc compared with the NHS etc, but if the choice is between having a serious health problem treated privately or not treated at all by the NHS what do your do?

I spent a few months working in the kitchen of a brand new private hospital (Cut the crusts off the sandwiches for the private patients, leave them on for any NHS patients) I was told how lucky it was that the hospital had been built next to a large NHS hospital because there was no emergency cover at night and if anything went wrong they were dependant on the NHS one.

I cannot fault the NHS for DH's cancer treatment. The general wards in the hospital can be a bit grim but the cancer unit is great staffed by really caring people. The drugs he has been treated with are unbelievably expensive and even if we could afford insurance I doubt if we could cover the cost. I know a lot of Americans who have terrible trouble with their insurance when they try to obtain these drugs and are frequently turned down altogether.

Having been told for the third time in 7 years that I was 'so very close, but not quite' at the threshold for cataract surgery, with, as my optician told me, guidelines and goal posts constantly changing, I've decided to pay privately in order to maintain my independence. I'm widowed, have no family nearby and have had 2 serious falls during the past year due to poor vision in bad light, one resulting in surgery (on the NHS) and the other in weeks of physio (for which I paid, as there was a long waiting list.) My driving has become increasingly restricted; I'm pretty capable and resilient, but by delaying or denying this simple op I have cost the NHS more (shoulder surgery) and could, did I not live in a town with a good bus service, have become isolated. Four years ago I explored private surgery and was quoted £2000 - £3000 for both eyes. Two weeks ago, the cost had risen to £8000 - for 2 twenty-minute procedures, presumably because of the postcode lottery here for NHS ops. I can afford to pay this, but I mind very much for those who can't.

I must have been lucky - I've had brilliant, friendly and sympathetic treatment from the NHS in terms of radio/chemotherapy for bowel cancer and have had no cause for complaint whatsoever.

When I first started working for nhs we had single rooms on wards which were private don't know what people paid though . Saw several people who had had surg in private hospital turn to nhs when problems arose because private hospital didn't have either staff or equipment needed so I think there is two sides to story pambo what you have gone through is disgusting I hope if my cancer recurred I am treated better take care ??

The dentist I'm with is private. Yesterday I had an appointment to have a filling removed and a new filling replaced. I was sat in the waiting room ( shared with nhs practitioners ) and noticed that Band B nhs charge was £53 something which includes fillings - went in for mine as was charged £40.

Pambo I am utterly with you, DH's experience was trivial compared with your problems, but it was the same lack of interest and messy indifferent response to somebody's ill health and failure to seem them as a person rather than a medical problem that needs to treated quickly and efficiently that adversely affected your treatment and the failure to diagnose and terat the awful pain DH was in.

When we retired we took out a low price, high excess private health plan out. After 10 years we realised we had spent over £25,000 in premiums, which went up relentlessly each year and made very little call on the policy for treatment. We both reached 70 and the premium doubled. So we cancelled the policy and now put the premium we used to pay, without increase into a savings account that we call the Helth Fund because the money in that account is there purely to pay medical expenses. We paid for DH's private treatment from the fund and as we continue to remain reasonable healthy the total amount in the fund is growing well and every penny is available for our use, or possible DC to inherit.

That's excellent pambo that your private health insurance saved the day.
Our monthly payments for private health care went up considerably this year and when we questioned it, they said it was because they had had to pay out a lot more cancer treatment claims than normal recently because patients were chosing the private option when in the past they would have opted for the NHS treatment route. We were left to draw our own conclusion.
I wish every patient in every hospital could have the same quality care irrespective of cost.

So sorry to hear of your experience pambo. Good wishes for the future.,as you say, it's hard luck on those who don't have your resources.

Private for minor things, physiotherapy, eyes etc. Here we have well regulated private clinics and so you are not pushing others down the waiting list so that salves my socialist conscience!