Paying for a private consultation to speed up long NHS hospital wait

You can’t speed up an NHS wait if you need additional treatment you can’t be referred back, but yes, you can see a consultant quickly and they can plan and do treatment quickly but at a cost of course.
Both I and my husband have done this for different things.
My husband was waiting over two years for a consultation which kept getting moved and changed by NHS. Went private and Within two months he had seen someone, got his treatment plan and was on the mend.
Mine was a simple case, I had reoccurring tonsillitis and I was due to go to university and the nhs wait was over nine months so I’d have had to defer. Called private hospital and Within 3 weeks I had surgery.
Would I recommend going private? Yes, if you can afford it and are suffering then you should. Let me know if you have questions.

I was about to do it but GP told me they wouldn't accept a private diagnosis or prescription without doing the consultation themselves. So if you go private you have to stay that route

It worked quite well at our fertility clinic because the consultants were both private and NHS so paying meant we were able to pick our consultant and be seen quicker.

Once you go private, I feel that they won't prioritise you. Either go private or wait. Do you have health insurance? After paying the excess I didn't have to pay anything else going private and I needed surgery on my ovary, it was super quick to be booked too, that was worth it as it helped me conceived my second child. The same gynaecologist helped me years before with my hormones issues, without this private consultation I'm not sure I would be a mum today. Do what's best for you, weight pros and cons

Ask your GP for a right to choose referral. Hubby slipped a disc 18 months ago and could barely walk so he had his MRI done privately literally the day after booking it, then when he saw the NHS consultant they were able to make a plan straight away as they had results, rather than then sending him for the MRI and waiting again. It took months and months for his treatment though so may not have sped things up much but at least he had a clear picture of what was going on rather than guessing, he went private for physio which was far more effective than the NHS physio. Just make sure the NHS will accept the work of whoever you see privately otherwise they’ll just say they need to do it themselves anyway

don’t think this is necessarily true. My friend had a private mri as had a cancer scare but the nhs wait was too long for her anxiety. She had the scans sent over to the nhs hospital and it moved it all along quicker.

it may be different with things like cancer but I was told by 2 docs at my GP that for fertility / gynae issues the NHS would have to do testing themselves and wouldn't accept anything from private

maybe it varies from place to place. My NHS fertility clinic accepted my AMH test which had been done privately.

The problem with nhs and private is that, nhs might not accept private doctors findings and will make you "sit in the queue " one way or other

oh that's so good glad it worked out

The nhs tends to not recognise any diagnosis made by a private consultant. So if you go private for this matter you will have to stay private until it's resolved. So if you find you need ongoing treatment or medication, this will all have to be paid for. The NHS won't follow up until you have been through their testing and consultants.

So great if you just need an allergy diagnosis or a single operation (knee, hip, tonsils...). As normally no follow up is needed after a certain amount of time.
I know a few people who have been down the route for hips and allergy testing all said was good bar one who had allergy testing which came back as a disease instead and required to then do NHS testing to access a consultant

I went private and then was able to call my GP to let them know the outcome from the private consultant. It did help speed things up initially as they said the NHS could use the private scan results as long as they could see that and run mine and my husbands blood work. It still took 6-9 months months to get referred to the fertility clinic though.