Frustrated patient skips long NHS waiting list to go for hip op care package in France

After yet another fall and facing a three-year wait for a new hip on the NHS, Linda Clark struck a money-saving deal and joined the 75,000 Scots a year opting to become health tourists.

The otherwise fit and healthy 70-year-old decided life was “too short” to wait in pain when she could go to France for the surgery, and secured a before-and-after care package that would allow her to see the sights while undergoing physio.

The Glasgow pensioner said: “I decided enough was enough. I’d already waited a year for a diagnosis, and the prospect of waiting a further two years suffering debilitating pain before I could get a new hip was not acceptable.”

Long wait for surgery

When her leg collapsed underneath her during her regular exercise class, Linda finally decided to act after realising she had gradually given up so many of the things she loved because she desperately needed a full hip replacement.

She said: “I discovered that after initial tests, which would take upwards of 40 weeks’ waiting time on the NHS, there would be another 50-week wait to see a specialist, followed by a further 40-week wait for hip replacement surgery.

“I found an incredible company called Elite Surgery Abroad which arranged everything so I could access pioneering affordable private surgery in a trusted, top-notch French private hospital 40% cheaper – at £10,500 – than the £17,000 UK cost and that did not even cover physio.

“We had to cancel the holidays we had planned, and dip into our savings, but my husband Ron and I agreed that it must be worth it to be free of the pain which was making my life a misery and restricting so much of what I could do.”

The surgery package

The package price included an accompanying partner, so Linda and Ron flew from Edinburgh to Paris Beauvais.

They were met at the airport and transferred to Amiens, where they were to taken to a one-bedroom balcony apartment for a week with all meals catered for.

The following day they were driven to the 310-bed Victor Pauchet Surgical Clinic for Linda to undergo a battery of tests and meet surgeon Dr Thomas Rouanet who would perform the hip replacement.

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Linda said: “The following day, I had my operation. By the afternoon, I was up on my feet.

“In a UK private hospital, I would have been discharged after two or three days and told to do physio on my own at home. In Amiens, I was in the hospital for nearly six days, and physios saw me several times a day over that period for intensive treatment.

“I was discharged to our apartment where an in-house physiotherapist put me through my daily paces. Nurses also came every day for aftercare, support and a chat in my schoolgirl French.”

Linda and Ron even went sightseeing around Amiens, one of the oldest cities in France with a cathedral even bigger that Notre Dame in Paris.

She said: “It was just the boost I needed. We were able to take in the sights, enjoy marvellous lunches in the restaurants which lines the banks of the Somme.

“We even managed a boat trip on the hortillonnages, the water gardens which supply the city’s fruit and flowers.”

After flying home, Linda began a full six-month recovery plan monitored by a Scottish-based GP that was also arranged by Elite Surgery Abroad.

Just four months after surgery, Linda is feeling so good that she has been travelling around the world enjoying all the overseas sights she was in too much pain to see before her successful operation. She said: “It has been astonishing. I feel great, and I didn’t need to worry about arranging a thing.

“We looked at other options, but it was difficult to get a definite figure on costs.

“With Elite, all tests, private room, physio, everything was included, right down to the last dressing.

“I am now virtually free of pain and more mobile every day. Who would ever imagine being able to get a new hip while taking in the sights of France?”

Elite was founded by former French hospital finance manager Raoul Mkoh, now based in Scotland and looking to make his mark in the growing health tourism industry.

The company is now attracting frustrated patients from across the UK and abroad.

Thousands now flying abroad for treatment

Years-long NHS waiting lists have caused health tourism to soar by more than 200% since 2019 – when around 250,000 people travelled from the UK to be treated overseas, according to experts.

Orthopaedic surgery has some of the longest waiting lists in Scotland, with patients regularly waiting three years or more for a hip or knee replacement.

Around 75,000 Scots are now believed to be seeking treatment overseas every year because of lengthy NHS waiting lists.

The Royal College of Surgeons has raised concerns about the increasing number of patients suffering complications following procedures such as gastric and plastic surgeries which cost the NHS millions to correct. That has prompted calls for patients to thoroughly check out the competence of overseas surgeons and hospitals.

Some of the highest numbers of complaints come from botched procedures in Turkey, which has a controversial history of health tourism and cut-price beauty “tweakments”.