Nhs Op

[tfg]

Hi, does anyone know if you can pay for nhs op to avoid, a long wait or even refusal, Ta

[Greedyfly]

You can go private in an NHS hospital but often this does not bump you to the front of the Queue

[Sparkles62]

tfg, I don't know the answer to your question, but if you are willing to pay, why don't you just go private ?

[Sqad]

Providing that there are private beds in the NHS hospital or that your surgeon has beds in a private hospital then yes......you can.

It all depends on your surgeon...... if he does private practice, then yes, as above, but if he doesn't do private practice, then NO.

[woofgang]

The refusal bit is a bit more complicated. Private consultants operate under the same rules as NHS ones and if the op is not a good idea for you then they won't do it either.

[tfg]

thanks, my partner has a bad arthritic right knee but also the cartilage was removed when she was young, and she still works in a nursing home, doing 12 hour shifts is hard for her so I get her to rub in Flexiseq daily and she takes Naproxen pain relief if needed, this does help but a new knee would solve the problem as I know others who have had knee replacements but as you know , unless you are almost immobile these days an op is difficult to get, so I thought about private health and in my local Nuffield hospital it would cost £12500 approx., out of the question!! I have heard knee replacements are good for 10 years but at age 66 she is not ready to give up with over 20 years experience behind her in care work, so I am trying to find a cheaper option than the Nuffield, but is difficult, Ta

[Sqad]

A good surgeon and you new knee should last 20 years.

£12500 is top whack.......£8-10 is more like it.

How much is it worth to get the nagging pain of knee arthritis?

[boxtops]

The most likely way is for her to get a referral to a private consultant from her GP, thus avoiding NHS waiting lists altogether. We've done that - it works.

[boxtops]

... I'm assuming that an NHS refusal might be on financial grounds as well as clinical reasons. The clinical commissioning groups only fund the hospitals to do so many of each procedure in any financial year - if the hospital perform more than that, they overspend.

[ubasses]

£11240 at BMI hospital

[woofgang]

Well here's a suggestion. I think what you need right now are the facts, not what you have been told or "what everyone knows"
A private consultation will come out at about 200 quid. The consultant will listen to the whole story, including the current state of the knee,any other health issues, what your partners knee and mobility will be like post op and any future issues so far as they can foresee and then give you an honest opinion about what the best course of action would be in his/her opinion. You'd then KNOW what the options/considerations are.
Its also worth phoning around different private facilities to get prices, there are differences.
The NHS as a whole will do ops on younger people to keep them in work/generally active but take into consideration if the knee is going to be subject to hard use is how long it would last and how successful any revision might be.

[tfg]

http://www.beautifulbeings.co.uk/orthopedic/knee/

near where I live,, interesting

[megfitz]

As an Orthopaedic nurse I'd go with woofgangs suggestion , sometimes an Arthroscopic washout will relieve pain for several years, or there are partial replacements if your Orthopod does not think a total replacement is suitable.
Replacements last in proportion to the useage they get..depending how active you are after.

[Greedyfly]

On the subject of Arthroscopic washouts - I have had four and due a fifth, currently one a year and get hardly any relief from them so it is as with everything each to their own. What works for one won't for another.

I am way too young for any sort of replacement and mine would be an ankle joint replacement which are very rare in the UK anyway.