The Student Room Group

Waiting time at NHS

What's the maximum waiting time for treatment at NHS? I'm moving to the U.K. in September for postgrad studies and would likely need to seek physiotherapy and dental treatment during the time. It would be helpful if you could share your experience as a patient at NHS. If the waiting long is unreasonable long, I might purchase health insurance that covers pre-exiting conditions so that I can go to private clinics without breaking the bank.
Physiotherapy on the NHS takes months - I was referred a few years ago and was told it would be 16-20 weeks but I was still waiting 9 months later (I moved to a different part of the country at that point an didn't bother getting referred again). Not sure about dentist as it would depend on what the problem is.
Agree with both of the above posters, dentists tend to see you fairly quickly as you are usually paying them. However with this corona situation dental treatment has been halted except in urgent circumstances, the lockdown is easing so i dont know if this is still the case but it's something to bear in mind that there may be a bit of a backlog.
Physiotherapy assuming you go through the NHS and privately will take forever unfortunately, the specific wait time will depend on the local area you move to but as black tea says expect it to take months.
I had a three month wait for physio which was then cancelled in April because of the rona :lol: Thankfully the problem resolved itself be me sitting on my ass at home not moving.
Reply 4
NHS waiting times are the worst, buy insurance and go private.

You will literally be waiting for months!
I've had a ganglion on my wrist for years and the NHS has basically saying go **** yourself to me since I am low priority so I am going to the EU to get it done privately (private healthcare in the UK is WAYYY more expensive than other countries).
Private physio is the best and not even that expensive. I was 18 and needed physio on my back, the NHS said i was on a waiting list between 2-12 months long. Just paid £50 a session at Anatomy. NHS is really for emergency treatment tbh. Anything less serious than that and you might aswell forget about it
Dentistry work is usually fine, since you still have to pay for part of it yourself. All other non-emergency NHS treatments have a maximum waiting time of 12 weeks, and you should expect to wait the full amount of time. Our healthcare system is funded through taxation and managed by the government, so I'm sure you can imagine exactly how useful it actually is if you aren't literally dying. If insurance is an option, I'd strongly advise taking it.
As above - I've seen physio wait times of over a year. Crazy.

I'd put further emphasis that due to covid wait times are likely to be much longer than usual.
Reply 8
Hi guys, thank you for your replies. It seems like the waiting time for non-urgent health conditions will be unusually long with covid still around. As an international student, I'm required to pay a 450 pound surcharge to NHS each year. If so much money can only get me late treatment, I might as well invest on health insurance so that I can get private treatment timely when I need it.
Original post by Anonymous
Hi guys, thank you for your replies. It seems like the waiting time for non-urgent health conditions will be unusually long with covid still around. As an international student, I'm required to pay a 450 pound surcharge to NHS each year. If so much money can only get me late treatment, I might as well invest on health insurance so that I can get private treatment timely when I need it.

you'll need nhs still, as we don't have private health care for emergencies or for minor issues, there's private GPS but depending on where you live there might not need them.
I would suggest paying for physio in cash perhaps depending on how often you need it (my physio is £30-40 per appointment) rather than private health insurance and private dentists have monthly plans you can sign up for, or get a health cashback plan rather than full-blown health insurance.

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