​As NHS waiting lists get longer it’s time to look at the alternatives

For the young it’s finding a place to live in when the right partner comes along, for others it’s being able to get a doctor when one is needed. Age brings on so many health problems and our national health service is creaking at the seams.

We are all vulnerable unless we can go down another route for healing purposes – paying for treatment ourselves. This week I was the patient of a consultant who, hopefully in a couple of

weeks’ time will be treating a medical condition which settled in without my permission.

On the NHS I would have had an extremely long wait to see a consultant who in turn would probably have had to add me to his overly long waiting list of similar patients. I’m not a wait-er.

I like things done and dusted, yes even my health problems. I think the NHS does its best but it’s creaking at the seams. There are just too many of us needing the treatment it can give.

People think nothing of paying for a nice holiday in Europe’s hot spots every year but they balk at having to pay for health treatment at home. Times are changing though. Our NHS is in crisis and can’t be expected to heal everything that afflicts us. What we do pay in national insurance is obviously simply not enough Indifferent health is a frightening thing. It’s why more and more doctors are working in a private capacity. They cost money of course but I’d sooner put my money into my health than fork out for a new car or spend money on foreign holidays which, like this summer, can turn nasty. I adore Greece but it’s vulnerable to wild fires in the parts I’m quite likely to visit.

I read this week that the number of patient waiting a year for NHS treatment in England has risen by 15% in the past year. This represents over 333,000 patients. The Tories are anxious to cut NHS waiting lists, and eliminate waits of more than a year by 2025. Wishful thinking? I suspect it is why, reluctantly, I’ve chosen the private route.

Now that hasn’t been easy as it is all quite different to simply making an appointment at your local clinic and leaving the rest to your GP. I did some homework through friends who `go private’ and realised it’s basically a business arrangement. Speed is of the essence; it’s the important factor in you being healed quickly or putting up with a condition that is unpleasant and possible dangerous if not treated quickly.

The Lib Dem’s health and social care spokesman Daisy Cooper said recently the government `must do more to reduce waiting times’. Soaring NHS waiting time she said `is causing untold suffering and damaging our economy by leaving people too sick to return to work’. The government responded by saying it had `virtually eliminated 18-month waits and were working to bring down waits of over a year’. Those are scary figures. And its gets worse, in Northern Ireland 120,267 patients are currently waiting to be admitted to hospital. Up to May of this year 52.9% – 64,513 patients - were waiting more than 52 weeks.

Those in need of suitable health care here can take no comfort from the fact we don’t have a working Assembly right now. So we are depending on those who run the service to make the effort to get the figures down. Our figures are not too different to those in England. The long-term is certainly scary but a growing number of private care patients may ease some of the burden.