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What about private healthcare

The doctors at Keyworth Health Centre do not take private patients for general medical services, only NHS patients. However, we refer lots of patients to specialists privately. We do not have any reservations about this, since as dedicated NHS doctors, we feel the more people who are treated outside the NHS, the more resources are left for those patients being treated inside the NHS.

Most people will opt for private specialist treatment if they need to see a specialist and are covered by some private medical insurance plan. If you have insurance it is best you tell us at the time of referral. We do not usually ask people if they are insured or not, as most aren't. A single consultation will cost in the region of £90. But if you are insured we encourage you to use private care because it saves NHS resources. Most insurance companies require your GP to fill in a form with your medical details and to confirm that we recommended referral in the first place (we charge a fee for this.....click here to see private fees list) . It it important that if you are contemplating private treatment you get confirmation from your GP that the treatment is medically necessary beforehand. It is not possible to do this retrospectively. Many people get caught this way with physiotherapy. They arrange private treatment then discover after a few sessions they can claim on insurance, but they will only get reimbursed from the date the GP confirms that treatment is required. A telephone call to speak to your GP (link to telephone times) may be adequate to confirm it.

Sometimes people who are not insured still opt for private treatment to avoid long NHS waiting lists and to ensure they get to see the specialist personally. Before doing this it is best to check how long the NHS list is. Quite a lot of NHS lists are very short indeed. It depends what the problem is.

It is the cost of investigations and operations that stops most people even considering private treatment if they are not insured. Most investigations cost hundreds of pounds and operations thousands. But is is worth remembering that these costs are not inflated but real. Whenever these things are done in the NHS it costs the taxpayer the same amount of money

The private sector cannot usually cope with emergency treatment, something which most people do not realise. So if you are unfortunate enough to have a fracture, or a heart attack or appendicitis you would need to be treated under the NHS. We would thoroughly recommend this anyway, since by and large the NHS excels when it comes to the treatment of serious emergencies.