Private or NHS?
What would you choose?
Private healthcare
NHS
The Doctor's summary:
There is no doubt private healthcare has it's benefits. Being seen quickly and given time to discuss your issue is going to have a bigger impact upon your outcomes more so than the expertise and multi-disciplinary care the NHS offers. However, if I was really unwell, acutely unwell; I'd rather be in that dirty NHS hospital.
It is the question so many patients ask, and just as many doctors. Which is better?
The truth is, there is no simple answer. But there are two clear differentiators: speed and access. That is the biggest pull of private healthcare. You can speak to a private GP within minutes. You can see a consultant within days. You can book a scan almost instantly. You can have an operation within weeks.
But with speed comes cost, and that is where the British public often hesitates. How much are we really willing to pay for our health? Would you spend £80 to see a GP? £250 to see a specialist?
Now, frame it differently. Would you pay the price of a train ticket for same-day medical advice? Or the cost of a night at a five-star hotel to see the consultant you want, when you want? Working in private practice, I have seen many patients justify the price exactly this way. For them, it is not about luxury. It is about certainty, time saved, and peace of mind.
But does private also mean better? Here is where many of my colleagues would argue, and they are right. Private care is not the same as comprehensive care. It is excellent for speed and convenience, but if you become acutely unwell, the NHS remains the backbone.
Take a heart attack. If you suddenly collapse during an operation in a private hospital, the truth is stark. That hospital often will not have the expertise, equipment, or critical care backup to treat you. In that moment, you would be transferred straight back to the NHS.
And there is more. The private system can sometimes over-investigate, ordering tests that are not always needed, because choice and reassurance are part of what people pay for. It can also lack the joined-up multidisciplinary care the NHS does so well. The coordinated teams of nurses, physios, dietitians, and social workers who manage complex conditions together are harder to replicate privately.
So private healthcare is not always better. It is simply different.
And what does that actually mean?
Let me tell you a story of a colleague of mine.
One day, she felt a lump in her breast. It was a busy day in theatre. She had a full surgical list and was on call that week. She did not have the time or headspace to phone her NHS GP. That night, she logged onto her surgery’s website and submitted an e-consult. The next day she received a response: she could book an appointment. The earliest one she could attend was a week away.
She knew what this could be. She also felt she could wait. Work was relentless, and she pushed through. When she finally saw her GP, they examined her and referred her via the two-week urgent cancer pathway. Another two weeks until she would be seen.
But this time her workload had eased. She decided to contact her private insurer, who arranged a breast surgeon appointment within days. She was seen, scanned, and diagnosed with breast cancer almost immediately. Surgery was recommended and carried out the following week. By the time her NHS appointment came through, she had already had her operation.
And yet the story does not end there. She still needed chemotherapy. And what did she choose? She chose to have it on the NHS. Not because it was not available privately but because she knew where the expertise lay. The NHS offered a bigger team: specialist nurses, radiologists, pathologists, and multiple breast surgeons working together. Governance was stronger. Care was less influenced by commercial incentives.
Do you see? Private healthcare gave her speed and early action. The NHS gave her breadth, depth, and long-term safety.
Speed and Access
Private healthcare is known for one thing above all: speed. But navigating it depends on what you need, whether you know the diagnosis, and whether you’re using insurance or paying yourself.
Private GP Appointments
You can often get a same-day appointment—either digitally or in person.
Many UK insurers include digital GP appointments as part of the premium, at no extra cost, and they don’t affect your no-claims bonus.
A digital GP can produce a referral letter—but if they require a physical exam, you’ll need to pay privately or go back to your NHS GP.
Consultant Appointments via Insurance
First, you need a GP referral letter—often provided via the insurer’s digital GP—potentially on the same day.
Insurers will then authorize your referral, usually within 24 hours.
After that, you’re given a choice of consultants and hospitals, and appointments typically happen within days, rarely more than a week, depending on specialty.
Consultant Appointments via Self-Pay
Self-paying can be even faster. Many consultants will see you without a GP referral letter if you’re funding your own care.
Because you’re not restricted to their approved list, you can book with virtually anyone directly.
Consultants often prioritize self-pay patients—they receive higher fees, so it’s in their interest to see you quickly.
NHS Data 2025
GP (Routine Appointments)
NHS GP same day appointments | 43.7% |
NHS GP appointments within 2 weeks | 82% |
Consultant (Elective, Routine Treatment)
Start elective treatment targets | 92% |
Average wait to start elective treatment | 20 weeks |
Statistics are always difficult to intepret. But another way to look at the NHS GP appointments is to imagine that almost 1 in 5 people waited more than 2 weeks to see their NHS GP. Similarly, the average person waits more than 5 months to start specialist treatment.
Time with the Doctor: More so in private healthcare?
Rushed appointments are one of the most common criticisms of NHS care. GP consultations are typically ten minutes, and specialty appointments are often designed for speed. Privately, the perception is that you simply get more time. But is that really the case?
General Practice
In private practice, many providers offer consultations lasting 20 to 30 minutes. That extra time allows patients to explain their concerns fully, and doctors to explore them without watching the clock. Unsurprisingly, more time generally improves both patient satisfaction and health outcomes.
Not every problem requires a 30-minute consultation, of course. But when you are offered a ten-minute NHS GP slot, it is common to find yourself back out of the door in even less time.
Are all private providers the same? Not quite. You get what you pay for. Online-only providers often cap appointments at 10 to 12 minutes. Their GPs are monitored closely for efficiency because margins are tight; too few appointments in a day and the service loses money. Large chain groups, such as Doctap or Bupa, often take a similar approach, with shorter default appointments and the option to pay extra if you want more time. Independent practices—think Harley Street GPs—tend to offer longer appointments as standard, with less pressure on doctors to rush.
Consultants
Consultant appointments vary too, but most private specialists provide 20 to 30 minutes per consultation. It is rare for a consultant to see a patient for less than the booked time, and there is less pressure to shorten appointments because their relationship with the clinic is different from that of a salaried GP.
One important caveat: consultants are often paid significantly less when they see patients through private health insurance compared with self-pay patients. That financial incentive may influence how much time and attention self-pay patients receive.
In the NHS, by contrast, consultant clinics are built around efficiency. Hospital trusts work hard to maximise throughput, but the result is often stressed clinicians and rushed encounters. Many patients have told me they left appointments feeling they did not have time to raise all their concerns, and that is a recurring frustration in the NHS system.
Choice and Comfort
Comfort
We’ve all passed through NHS GP surgeries, hospitals, or mental health centres—maybe in person, during a visit, or just on the TV. For many, the first thought isn’t positive.
I’ve walked countless hospital corridors, and the vibe is rarely uplifting. Yes, cleaning happens—but buildings feel tired quickly. Even new hospitals show wear. It seems the NHS lacks the impetus to maintain estates properly. GP surgeries face similar issues: cluttered consulting rooms, decade-old posters, and a general sense that care for appearance goes missing.
Private facilities aren’t always dramatically better. Older private hospitals or wings in NHS hospitals can feel just as worn—dated posters, overflowing bins, waiting areas that lack warmth. A water cooler doesn’t change that they’re not five-star venues.
Private GP practices generally do better. Rooms are compact (rent matters), yet cleaner. A newer wave of clinics takes aesthetics seriously, with minimalist, welcoming designs. Legacy brands like Bupa or HCA often still struggle, though their newer sites are improving.
Choice
“Continuity of care remains a challenge. In some practices, fewer than 20% of patients regularly saw their preferred GP in 2025.”
When did you last see your GP—the one who knows your history, who might have seen you as a child? Continuity in the NHS is fading. Efficiency has taken the lead, and unless you’re elderly, frail, or palliative, consistent GP access is rare.
With consultants, once you’re in the system, you typically continue to see them or their team—so there is some continuity.
Privately, things vary. Large providers and online platforms make continuity difficult; systems aren’t built for it. But many independent practices excel at long-term relationships.
Consultants? Self-pay patients have full choice. With insurance, your policy dictates which consultant you can see—choice can be limited.
Does choice truly matter? For a chest infection, maybe not. But for chronic or complex conditions, yes. Think of a lightbulb versus a full rewire: small jobs are about price, complex ones are about trust in the person you choose.
Over-Investigation and Multi-disciplinary Care
The NHS Approach
NHS care is built on fairness and on working within its financial means. It is designed to help everyone, which means efficiency must come first. From the outside, a huge organisation like the NHS may not look efficient, and yes, wastage is often criticised. But behind the scenes, your doctor’s decisions are guided by rules intended to keep care fair and sustainable.
NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) reviews evidence for drugs, treatments, scans, and even apps. They consider not only whether something works, but also its cost, and the impact it will have on the patient, on society, and on the wider NHS. If the numbers do not add up, NICE does not recommend it. That does not mean the treatment is ineffective, only that it is not judged to be the best use of limited resources.
This approach applies to investigations too. An NHS GP cannot simply order a blood test or scan because a patient requests it. Vitamin D checks, ultrasounds, or MRIs all come with criteria that must be met. The system works on probability: if 90 out of 100 people do not need a scan, then all 100 are filtered. That keeps the NHS sustainable, but it also means the 10 who might have benefited could wait longer or be missed at first.
The Private Approach
Privately, you have options that are often not available on the NHS. Scans and blood tests can be offered without strict criteria. Most of the time, you do not need them. But doctors in private practice, less bound by rules and eager to keep patients satisfied, may lean towards offering more investigations.
This flexibility comes at a cost. Insurance premiums rise when unnecessary investigations become normal. Self-paying patients can spend thousands on tests that may not change the outcome of their care. Some patients try to bring those results back into the NHS, but NHS systems cannot always accept or act on them if criteria are not met.
Multi-disciplinary Care
One of the great strengths of the NHS is multi-disciplinary care. If you have cancer, for example, you may see your GP, an oncologist, a surgeon, specialist nurses, district nurses, physiotherapists, and even counsellors. Each works as part of a wider team, sharing information and supporting you across the whole journey.
Private care is not always structured in this way. You will usually receive excellent consultant-led care, but the support services around that consultant may be limited. Each practitioner is often independent, rather than working within a joined-up team. That might not matter during diagnosis or surgery, but it can make a difference during recovery, where physiotherapy, nursing, or psychological support are key.
The same applies to private GPs. Many are single-handed or small operations without a full multi-disciplinary team. For straightforward issues, that might not matter. But for complex, long-term problems, the lack of a coordinated team can become a limitation.
“NHS patients with long-term conditions often benefit from multi-disciplinary teams. In the 2025 GP Patient Survey, 86% of people with a long-term condition felt supported to manage their health—evidence of how joined-up teams improve care.” (gp-patient.co.uk)
The Bottom Line
So, private or NHS? The answer is rarely simple.
Private healthcare excels at speed, access, and sometimes comfort. It gives you more choice—especially if you are willing to self-pay—and often more time with your doctor. It allows you to bypass waiting lists and get investigations done quickly, even when the NHS criteria would say no. For many patients, that speed buys peace of mind.
The NHS, however, remains unmatched in fairness, breadth, and team-based care. It delivers world-class outcomes for serious illness, with multidisciplinary teams and robust governance structures that private care often cannot replicate. It is also free at the point of need, something that no private pathway can claim.
Most patients who step into the private system quickly discover this balance. They use private care for speed—an urgent scan, a quick consultation, a surgery scheduled in weeks rather than months. But when it comes to long-term treatment, complex illness, or multidisciplinary support, they return to the NHS.
The truth is, it does not have to be one or the other. For many, the best care comes from knowing how to use both systems together: the NHS for safety and comprehensiveness, the private sector for speed and convenience.
And that is what this site is about. Helping you see clearly where each system shines, where it falls short, and how you can make choices that actually work for you.
✅ Reviewed by Dr H Shah, GP
🗓 Last updated September 2025
⚠️ Disclaimer: This article is for information only and not a substitute for medical advice. Always speak to a healthcare professional for personal recommendations.
