[Closed] Benenden Health. Experiences?

Used to be brilliant; a well-run 'for the benefit of members' option for low-cost private treatment. Good contributions towards physio and other benefits. I believe it also had its own hospital.

Now an absolute shower of shit, and I'm not sure why anyone would join for the remaining 'benefits'

Ah crap,really? Ok mate, thanks for the heads up!

Long story short it used to be for Civil Servants, family members and a few other tenuous links.

It was cheap, but simple. You paid into it every month and basically you never claimed - however, if you did need help you would have access to speedy diagnosis/ treatment and other services.

Something happened (not sure what, but I noticed the change in marketing / stuff shoved through my letterbox) and I realised that it had taken a turn to open up to the general public, most of the benefits had gone and any remaining benefits had the terms changes in their favour.

NHS waiting times as they are, I really don't see the point in Benenden any more  - they kick in when your waiting list to be seen on NHS is longer than 3 weeks.  Might as well give the money to NHS unless I've missed a remaining benefit 🙂

I’m a member. The change from purely civil service happened fairly recently as they were facing a drop in membership.

They’ve still got hospitals- my Father in Law recently had his cataracts done there under the NHS. I think they do other ops under contact to help NHS capacity.

We initially just had my wife and kids on as I had free work medical cover. If I added them to the work cover it would have cost in a month about the same as a year of Benenden. When I lost the benefit I moved to Benenden too.

I’ve used both full private through the work one and Benenden. As BN says, only if wait is over a certain limit on
NHS do Benenden see you, whereas private it’s immediate.

The care at Benenden was good when needed.

I used to work (pharmacist) at the Hospital in Kent from 2007-2012 ish and had free membership then as an employee.

It was a nice place to work. The nursing care was good because of much better staff to patient ratio than you would get in an NHS hospital and the facilities better. Lovely grounds etc.

In terms of the actual medical care, they had a few substantive surgeons and anaesthetists but most were from the local NHS trusts doing extra private work and they’d not generally hang around post-op and most care then left to junior RMO doctor. Also, if you had any serious complication eg major bleed or sepsis, they didn’t have facilities to deal with it so you’d be shipped over to the NHS hospital anyway. This was rare though to be fair.

They have rebuilt a new hospital on the site now and don’t know what it’s like but think it’s pretty modern from few pics I’ve seen.

I’d be happy to be treated there for the niceness of the place but not convinced you’d get better actual medical treatment vs NHS and maybe worse if you are unfortunate enough to have complications. It may be quicker to get treatment but you still have to meet the criteria as mentioned. I didn’t end up keeping my membership on when I left and would’ve had to pay for it as I just didn’t think I’d use it or get enough benefit vs normal NHS care.

any serious complication eg major bleed or sepsis, they didn’t have facilities to deal with it

That probably goes for most private hospitals- same as it's mainly NHS surgeons moonlighting in private places.