Hip replacement - private and then NHS?? Is this right?

Oops.
It's a flat. On a council estate.

My privately owned house used to belong to the council, so I'm not sure if that means I'm allowed an opinion or not.

Do any of you live in privately owned houses? If you do, isn't because you can afford to live in a nicer place that you perceive is better than living on a council/housing association estate? What's the difference? Ah, I know- private medicine bad, private school bad, private house good. That's must make sense in the socialist world but it makes no sense to me!!!

Mellow - I agree with you. What is in this for the consultant? Do you think the person who told you this has the wrong end of the stick? If it's true then it should not be happening.

Perhaps a proportion of people do decide to have the op privately?

I've never though about why, but there must be some monetary gain?

So what I don't understand is why the consultants do it - in my case, say I did it this way I'd pay the guy £200 for the consultation and then he'd do the op 'free'. Is it just to get the £200? When I say 'just' I mean is that amount of money worth it to them to encourage people to bypass the system? As a patient I'd feel sordid doing that, even though I badly need the op. I can understand someone paying full whack to go privately, but this arrangement seems unethical to me.

Used to temp in an orthopaedic department and yes it happens with some consultants. They also only had 4 days of working on NHS patients. Disgusting practice.

Some secretaries doubled up as private secretaries for their consultant so NHS paying them and they dealing with private work in NHS time.

it has been going on for a long time- and it is disgusting. Some Consultants deliberately keep their NHS list very long in order to encourage people to go privately.

I have known a few people who have used private consultations as a means of queue jumping.

I'm not sure what is ethical theses days...