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Private Treatment v NHS

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I

ianmacleod

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Has anyone ever used their private medical insurance instead of the NHS?
Is the NHS, with its Specialist Diabetes departments the best course of action, eventhough things seem to take a long time?
I have been waiting over a month now for the results of a blood test (anti-GAD and islet-cell antibodies). Can't imagine a blood test could take this long using private medical.
 
Hi Ian,

I see a private consultant for my diabetes but be careful as they do not allow you to see a consultant if it is for routine tests or monitoring. I can only see mine until they have solved a specific problem.
 
Ah. Those take a notoriously long time.

I've not sufficient access to a lab to find out exactly why that is, only know that they do. A case of don't remind for at least a month ..... took Patti 3 months to find out her results last year ...... another lady (on my other D forum) has been waiting 5 weeks at the mo .....
 
GAD/C-Peptide tests do take around 6 weeks to get the results, whether you go via the NHS or privately... It's because it takes time process the actually blood sample, then the results need reviewing and it takes time to interpret the actual results it's not as simple as our HbA1c's etc.. where you have a range to depicts yet that's T1, T2 or LADA..

Hence why it takes so long
 
When I was first diagnosed, nearly 20 years ago, my GP sent me to see a consultant privately. He (the consultant) told me then that the private healthcare system in this country is not geared up for handling chronic conditions like diabetes and I would be much better off using the NHS. I followed his advice, and have had excellent care in the NHS since then. Also, BUPA (at least) won't cover chronic conditions, but will cover dealing with complications.

The NHS is a bit slow sometimes, but you get there in the end, and you can switch to the private system for specific problems.
 
I used to work for the Public Health Laboratory Service, which is part of the NHS and deal's with infections/diseases in the community... The hospital Lab's deal with all other test, such as our HbA1'c etc..

The turn around, isn't based so much in Administration this has a minimum impact on when you receive your results.. The turn around is based on how long it takes to run the test on the sample!

A urine infection can take a week to identify the actual bacteria causing it, the urine sample is delivered with in an hour, it has been logged in and sample placed on media plates, these are then put in to cupboards, that enable the perfect environment for the bacteria to grow so it can be identified..

Then urgent results are phoned through to the doctor surgery, then hard copies are sent via the internal NHS post system.. Also now transferred by computer systems..


And if you've ever wondered why sometimes your sample is sent in a Blue coloured form, or a Green one..

Blue forms are sent to the Public Health Lab and Green Forms are for the Hospital Lab for testing...
 
Thank you all for your responses. Very informative.
Just for the record, I received my results yesterday (5 weeks) - both negative. Therefore, Type 2.🙂
 
ianmacleod said:
Thank you all for your responses. Very informative.
Just for the record, I received my results yesterday (5 weeks) - both negative. Therefore, Type 2.🙂
Click to expand...

Thanks for the update Ian, good to hear you have a firm diagnosis which hopefully will now mean you will receive the most appropriate treatment 🙂

There are lots of resources available in our Useful links thread, so have a browse. If you have any questions or concerns, do please ask and someone is more than likely to know the answer! 🙂
 
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