Private health

If you have pre-existing conditions, yes. Some folks I know in that boat, depend on it, they are sold.

If you already actively take an interest in your health, chances are that you already know how your local surgery works and maybe what you can expect when more NHS involvement becomes necessary.

Only then you'll figure out if it is worth it.

In truth, our local NHS services are fine in quality - but stressed.

So I'm on a scheme with my employer that costs me (aged 55 non-smoker) £1200 a year. Four times the cost of my broadband (ouch)

I must go and check out their dental service, otherwise it will be like my AA motor cover (never used a callout).

There is a much cheaper £140 a year option.

Presumably there's something the matter with you that prevents your putting "OT" in your post's title.

I don't have a private healthcare scheme, but I have paid for private treatment when NHS delays were too long. I reckon that is the cheaper course, unless you have something really expensive, like my heart valve replacement, which I am told, cost the NHS £20k.

If it was one of those valves that can be put into place by passing it up from your leg, then the valve alone is about £16K

Mine involved open heart surgery, taking around 3-4 hours, one day in ITU and a week's recovery in hospital, with twice daily physiotherapy.

Does it matter?

Will that stop you having a good night's sleep tonight?

Looking after your own health is more DIY than many things that get posted here. Besides, I knew a chap who operated on his own knee cap, after it got broken in a motorcycle accident. You can't get much more DIY than that.

they only want to sell it to people who don't need it ....

like all insurance

PAYG is another approach especially as you can always try and fall back on the NHS if the price is to high.

I'm not convinced by it myself. I have a friend who has it because his wife works for a company which offers it as a perk. He recently had a knee operation, but when he got a blood clot that was attributed to the op, they sent him to nhs A/e where he waited several hous, claiming it was nothing to do with them. So beware, they only like the things that make them dosh. Brian

Fall-back to the NHS not really available to EU citizens resident in the UK and having to rely on (expensive) insurance paid for by such residents.

It did occur but LBH groups like this have become quite generic.

But if it arses you or anyone else off to this degree I don't want that on my conscience so i'll put the effort in inn future. Have a good day.

Both my brother and SIL have paid to have cataracts removed privately. Due to a 2 year waiting list.

SIL has also paid a great deal for Boots hearing aids. Despite having modern NHS ones - but having problems, and again a long waiting list.

I did that for my partner for the same reason. A few years later, the same surgeon did her other eye on the NHS with only a short wait.

IME, the NHS are magnificent for acute problems, but lack the resources to deal with chronic problems in the same way.

Whereas SWMBO was told of a 2 year wait for NHS for the first eye and then a further 18 months for the second. Privately, from the same surgeon, she had one done with a months notice and the second 2 weeks later (that's nexct Tuesday0

That is the advantage of PAYG. You can look at the NHS waiting list and decide whether or not you want to wait. When I had a very painful knee, I was told the NHS had a three month waiting list for an MRI scan. Paying got me one in 48 hours and I got to keep the pictures.

When our son had a severe seizure - about 7 minutes, followed by cardio-respiratory arrest (which he only survived because my wife, an ex-nurse, resussed him - the consultant wanted to "wait and see" if he had another. We did not fancy him having one one the hour's bus journey to or from school and wanted to rule out malformations or tumours. We paid for a private consultation at another hospital and that consultant contacted our GP, who arranged an urgent MRI scan on the NHS.

In message snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com, at 18:40:02 on Fri, 15 Oct 2021, nightjar snipped-for-privacy@bignell.me.uk> remarked:

Yes, and the main skill required from patients is persuading them that a chronic condition has become acute.

Unfortunately about half the patients at A&E are engaged in this, mainly without good reason, but they get in the way of people where it's true.