I work privately and in NHS GP practice. I see on average 85 people a week across both sectors, and refer you to services locally on the NHS for community care or surgery.
I see how slow things are these days on the NHS and how treatments have been cut for NICE evidenced based cost effective care. That means new innovations cannot be used on the nhs or those that can help but are costly they do not offer.
I see you wait when I know privately you’d be seen and you’d stop suffering.
Then it dawned on me. We pay for our dog or cats health yet we sit and wait years for our own. Why?
I guess you don’t know what’s happening to the NHS or that private healthcare is now so cheap.
For £1.45 a day you can have private health care cover that protects you from cancer, or gives you fast access to treatments like physio or surgery.
Did you know on the NHS you’d now wait 18-24months for a joint replacement. Two years of your life with limited mobility, pain and loss of your independence. That’s the severe cases by the way.
It’s 31 weeks to wait for routine physio locally and when you get there treatment is restricted and changed due to cost related or waiting list pressures. They don’t use acupuncture, electrotherapy, taping, Pilates, massage or as much manual therapy these days, so all the emphasis will go back on you to self care. They work on a treatment average of 2.5 sessions. That’s one 45min assessment and one treatment per patient.
It’s also a two week wait if you present to your GP with cauda equina of over 14days duration. Cauda equina can accompany sciatica. It’s where you have pins and needles in your saddle area, or you have a reduced sensation when going to the toilet or it can be so bad it’s affecting your continence. It’s because your spinal cord is being compressed. That’s a two week wait now even though you have the risk of paralysis and life changing disability.
Don’t get me started on community care, the physios are well trained but they are so swamped they’re having to prioritise by considering risk and their treatment is aimed at hospital avoidance rather than detailed movement therapy like we used to have and still have in the private sector.
So it’s changed folks, and I care about you and your health but I cannot say this in nhs settings but I can say it here. Please consider private care if you have the means. I don’t enjoy seeing people waiting for help when I know you can get better with as little as £1.45 per day.
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