Finding reviews of surgeons

Lucky as your late DH was a doctor I'm surprised that you're looking to find a surgeon based on on-line reviews.

They have all long changed since OH was practising! I need to look at surgeons who have a track record of doing the op I need, not someone who only does it once a year!

Go onto Private Health care web sites, if the Surgeon’s practising there they will have his or her details.

We have called various hospitals over the years and they have usually been happy to tell us how long the Surgeon has been in practice and how often they are operating at the hospital.

My father did this for me regarding my hip replacement.
I’ll ask him how he went about it and get back to you

Have a look on the website of your nearest NHS major hospital and check out the names of the surgeons for the speciality you want. He/she will almost certainly have a private practice.

Luckygirl3

They have all long changed since OH was practising! I need to look at surgeons who have a track record of doing the op I need, not someone who only does it once a year!

What I meant was don't choose a surgeon based on online reviews!

I've just been trying to find out about a surgeon, how many ops of a particular sort he's done etc. Always bare in mind the ones who agree to the most risky cases don't always have the best statistical outcomes and you need to understand the data. Needless to say, I've still not found anything about my surgeon and would also like to know how to get this data. I'm sure there used to be some sort of NHS website where you could look at outcomes data for hospitals and had more info on the surgeons.

There must be clinical governance outcome data somewhere.

Don't hesitate to ask the surgeon how many he's done? One told my OH he hadn't done one before!

I've only ever been able to find details of qualifications and dates qualified but never any result tables, thought maybe they were only available to other doctors or hospital administrators.

I have now found the National Joint Registry and it is possible on there to find out how many of my particular op a surgeon does per year, which is useful.

The only surgeon I've ever consulted, explained very carefully to me that my right hip bone would need to be shaved in a fairly big operation, he even circled a diagram.... unfortunately I'd gone to see him about pain in my LEFT hip!!!!
I complained to the private hospital who said they could do nothing as he was an independent!
How I wished I could leave a review or complaint somewhere! I couldn't find anywhere to do it.
A few months later a good friend became very excited that her fathers NHS op had finally been booked in - with the same surgeon! Aaarrrgh!

And whoever you choose, make sure you don't have your operation towards the end of the day! I had an Endoscopy and colonoscopy (private) at 5pm. The consultant didn't give me enough painkiller and too much sedation (kinks in bowel) and didn't give either enough time to work. He obviously was in a rush to get home. I had nightmares for days afterwards

Try phin.org.uk

Be wary of online reviews

Warning over medical clinics using fake Google reviews

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66329833

Check out PHIN. Private Hospitals Information Network. You can check statistics of surgeons which are based on facts

Thank you for that idea.