Hi - I would like some feedback please:

My mother has gone down the private path, mainly to avoid waiting too
long, to sort out her knee pains...

First she was given a small proceedure a sort of 'hoovering out' of
the area... This did not work so she then had a new knee.... This was
not too successful so now she has just had the knee cap removed and
'shaved' and a button put on the back of it.

All three proceedures were not cheap - the second two being very
expensive. Really my question is whether as she went private and cost
is an issue, did they try to do the cheapest thing each time with the
result that it costed loads more in the longer run and she has had to
undergo three proceedures. Might the NHS just done the full monty in
the first place and got it right first time rather than trying to
penny pinch ? If this is the case then it would seem that private
medicine has some serious inherrant issues...

Does anyone know what percentage of NHS knee replacements are done
with the knee cap work done at the same time versus private. Her
doctor said that 80% of knee operations in the UK do not do the cap
work. ie 20% do as routine.... My hunch is that a higher percentage
are done as routine in the NHS as compared to private. Would be great
if anyone has the numbers. The problem is that a lot of the surgens do
private and NHS work and I guess they would do the same for both, so
the stats may not be so different. But with private I am thinking that
if they get say £1000 per operation and without the cap work they can
do 6 in a day versus only 3 with the cap work thrown in then it would
make sense not to want to throw in the cap work....