Private Providers & Services

Private Bariatric Surgery

Patients who choose to have bariatric surgery privately (abroad or in the UK) are not entitled to NHS follow-up care for this condition unless they have completed the NHS tier 3 weight management programme prior to going down the private route.

In the first 2 years post bariatric surgery, people require specialist follow-up which cannot be provided by your GP. This should be provided by a specialist in post-bariatric surgery care.

The 2-year care package required after surgery includes.

• Regular blood test monitoring after your operation over 2 years
• Monitoring for any complications of surgery
• Ensuring a person is on the correct lifelong supplements to prevent deficiencies in the body as a result of the surgery.
• In certain situations, lifelong injectable medications are also required to prevent b12 deficiency (depending upon the surgery a person has).

Without continuing life-long supplements, patients can become unwell over time.

Before choosing bariatric surgery, it is important to understand the life-long follow-up care required to ensure that a patient’s nutritional needs are met. Please organise your post-surgery care package before you choose this journey to ensure you are looked after safely.

Weight loss injections – Mounjaro/Wegovy

A GP will not advise a private provider if it is safe or not to prescribe such medications and if a request to offer an opinion is requested a non-response from the GP would not be an agreement that there are no contraindications to prescribing.

GPs will not be able to monitor or advise with regards to these medications when prescribed privately.

These medications are only prescribed by specialists in Weight loss clinics in the NHS and so lay outside the area of expertise for a GP and therefore a patient will be taking these medications at their own risk under the supervision of a private provider.

Under GMC regulations it is the responsibility of the PRIVATE prescribing clinician to assure themselves that their prescribing is safe. Ways of doing this would include taking an adequate history, examining the patient and doing and acting on any appropriate pre-prescribing investigations. Patients have access to their own medical record via the NHS App on smartphones which may facilitate their care.

Professional medication safety guidelines (NICE) require examination of the patient. This would seem to include objective and accurate weight measurement, at initial assessment and at regular review. At no point is it expected that the provider asks the patient’s NHS GP to do this private work on behalf of other organisations.

Gender Identity

As per BMA guidance,

General practice responsibility in responding to private healthcare (bma.org.uk)

“NHS GPs are not obliged to perform or request any tests that are required as a result of a patient attending a private provider. This is especially so, if such a test falls outside ordinary care usually provided by the GP and where the interpretation of the result of such test would fall outside the GPs knowledge, skills and competence. Such tests can be requested and actioned by the private provider themselves.

NHS GPs are not obliged to prescribe medications that are required as a result of a patient attending a private provider, nor are they required to convert privately issued prescriptions to a GP issued ones.

All shared care arrangements are voluntary, so even where agreements are in place, practices can decline shared care requests on clinical and capacity grounds. The responsibility for the patient’s care and ongoing prescribing then remains the responsibility of the private provider.

If you are concerned you might not get the investigations and medications you need as part of the care from your private provider, you are advised to purchase or negotiate a package with your private provider that includes all of this. If your private provider simply says, don’t worry, your GP will just do it, they are providing you with false assurance and factually incorrect information.”

For further advice and guidance on this please visit the link above.