Which……..Healthcare?

Private health care.

NHS is fine when im fit and healthy, but a recent fracture has again highlighted the frailties in the system

I don’t think this has been done for a couple of days, has it?

‘cuse me for having such a hectic life that i dont follow each and every thread

kind of you to link me to the most informative of the recent threads

could av saved yersell a sentence and just UTFS’d it.

Keep your knickers on sweetlips. There is a search button my love.

I was going to respond but

you really need the abbrev spelt out dum simon?

Having had all-singing/dancing cover when I was an ‘Exec’, I’d suggest that you save the premiums and when you need extra, just pay.

We did this with my wife after I’d moved jobs, and they were prepared to deal.

you really need the abbrev spelt out dum simon?

To be honest sweetheart, I haven’t got a clue what you’re trying to say.

All but the most simple fracture will be fine private. Beyond that the NHS is so far better than private Its not possible to measure. This does not include Comparison with other none UK healthcare systems. See another thread. ..

See another thread.

Steady on millcar, you’ll be upsetting the slightly sensitive soobalias and he’ll be forgetting how to spell and that!

pretty much everything that gets asked has been posted before

if people stopped asking it may as well be wikipedia

thx for the pointers millcar and b r

i really cant be bothered trawling through a 400+ thread that seems to involve TJ arguing with himself and the usual baiters, about…….. well anything really

i will investigate the PAYG options available

pretty much everything that gets asked has been posted before

Too true. The “joy” of stw is that you get a “personal” response to your question.

IME – if you are in any way self employed (whatever version of – you’re not working- you dont get paid) then it pays to have some form of health insurance.

My nhs nightmare involved a broken wrist in an RTC that due to the August bank holiday weekend in Edinburgh, indiffererence, infections and waiting lists – to cost me 6 months off work. Luckily my good lady has since got bupa cover as part of her salary. Subsequent care, physio etc has been 1st class.

Sadly none of us should need this. But the reality is different.

FWIW
I had PPP for years with work and they were superb and easy to deal with though many issues with my wife and a couple with the kids
Work has now switched to bupa and they seem a bit more reluctant to sign stuff of without a lot more questions – I get the impression they are trying to get out of it all the time

I wouldn’t use private healthcare for anything beyond the routine and simple. Junior doctor medical cover is far less and nursing staff are not allways well trained. If / when it goers wrong you will be off to the NHS and outcomes are generally worse in the private system.

really? that’s a bold statement even for you tj. i think i’ll just call you on it before anyone else just so as you can back it up

one thing worth considering if using private for surgery (and I guess this is TJs point) a lot of the hospitals that are used do not have an ICU
so if anything goes wrong they dial 999

I don’t know of any UK private hospital offering a true emergency service, so as far as your immediate fracture care goes you have no choice other than the NHS. However, subsequent care such as outpatient appointments with orthopaedic surgeons and any non-immediate surgery that may be required can often be taken care of privately.

From my own experience (as Consultant Anaesthetist who works in both the NHS and private sectors) going private certainly means you get appointments in a very timely manner and at your convenience, and the hotel side of the hospital experience should certainly be a much more pleasant. But as far as the actual medical care goes there really shouldn’t be much difference between private and the NHS. In fact if you are seriously in a bad way the NHS is the only place I’d want to be.

As for which private medical insurer to go with, I suspect they’re all much of a muchness from a patient’s point of view (although not from my point of view!). You could try some of the lesser known ones such as Exeter Friendly, WPA or Cigna.

Its as Uplink says – no ITU, no doctor on site at night something goes wrong and you are in trouble.

As for outcomes – its very hard to compare like with like but everytime you see a comparison done outcomes in the NHS are better. I know nurses that have worked in the big private hospitals – doing cardiac bypass surgery no less – and they horrified me with the tales of the risks taken.

I would do my best to stop any of my loved ones going anywhere near a private hospital purely on medical grounds

I don’t see any problem using private for aftercare etc
in fact, I’d recommend it

last time I had to have surgery (1994) I went nhs and took the cash that was offered for each day in a nhs hospital instead of using their services

uplink – no issue with aftercare and in reality the risks are not that much greater for surgery.

TJ is right in that many don’t have an ICU, but in my experience all do have a resident doctor. However, their experience and familiarity with english as a first language can be variable.

As for outcomes, I think there’s more to it than NHS versus private. For a start the two patient groups are hardly comparable in terms of comorbidities.

Nursing wise many of the private nurses will be ex-NHS, but will often be used to now looking after fit and healthy patients who have undergone relatively minor / peripheral elective surgery. However, the low dependency nature of most of the private patients does mean that the staff have time to do “nursing” stuff rather than rushing about like blue-arsed-flies as in the NHS.

as I said earlier, I’ve had private cover for 20 years or so and I think I’ve learned to use both to their strengths
my wife is disabled so we’ve had a lot of issues and TBH the private cover has helped in keeping timescales for some things within acceptable limits but I don’t know what we’d do without the the wonderful nhs
if I didn’t get cover with work, I really don’t think we’d bother with it but when it’s there you use it

Both my consultant and hand therapist work in an NHS hospital, as well as doing some time in a private hospital.
Surely there’d be no advantage paying to go private except maybe getting a bit more choice in appointment times?
They must all be trained to a similar level? Seems odd to me, except for routine ops where the nhs has a long waiting time.

They must all be trained to a similar level? Seems odd to me, except for routine ops where the nhs has a long waiting time.

Unless you are so soooper-rich as to afford your own personal ITU, private cover generally gets you faster access for routine elective stuff – more often than by the same bods who are working for the NHS, or ex-thereof.

The private sector is dependent on the NHS for a whole bunch of stuff, not least workforce training, acute/critical care capacity, etc – indeed, you could argue it keeps the premiums down. Whatever the politics, it’s never quite as simple as public/private/good/bad etc. Having posh hotel service isn’t really a substitute for proper emergency cover – conversely, the (mounting) delays in treatment times don’t do the NHS any favours… We live in interesting times. 😕

The NHS was not an option for Mrs TT for far longer than I would have wanted, so we went private to ensure she had health cover. The times we needed it were for pretty serious issues. If we had been NHS, we’d have seen the minion at the bottom of the department in slow time. Private took us to the consultant in a timescale that suited us (ASAP). Soob – see which schemes might offer discounts through work – I did.
Worth paying to ensure TJ has nothing to do with your long term care IMHO 😀

ensure TJ has nothing to do with your long term care

He’s geriatrics – the longest term of all. He’ll get to you in the end. 😈 😉

Of course, if there was no private medicine the NHS would be so much better. Why do you suppose there are shortages? Those nurses and doctors working in the private sector have to come from somewhere. And all those resources spent on private rooms and appointments for the wealthy, at just the right time, so as not to clash with ones pianoforte lessons. That all costs, resources that could be replacing hips and doing all the other real medicine people have to wait for.

APF

So, how was the rant?