An astounding 20 percent more people are being treated for stress related illnesses according to a top London mental health hospital. Experts at the private Capio Nightingale Hospital, the capital’s only independent centre for mental health, has also warned that the current recession could lead to “serious repercussions on the nation’s mental health and wellbeing”, as reported in Health Insurance and Protection Magazine. Stress to some may seem like a short term condition, or one that doesn’t affect anything apart from somebody’s mood but it can have major effects, especially in the long term on a person’s general health including their diet and their sleeping patterns. A bad diet could either lead to obesity or an eating disorder at the other extreme such as bulimia or anorexia if it gets out of control, leading to a wide variety of secondary health problems like diabetes, heart disease or osteoporosis. It is vital then that stress is identified and treated at the earliest opportunity.


The problem with stress, along with so many other conditions, is that many people do not even realise that they are suffering from it. Private medical insurance can give someone access to the type of general health and wellbeing check up that is not ordinarily available on the NHS, meaning that symptoms can be picked up on and diagnosed even if someone did not realise they had a problem. Many different treatments are available for stress including sleep and energy management advice, dietary and exercise advice and mediation services if they are found to be necessary, which can all be covered by a private medical insurance policy if a patient does not wish to receive these on the NHS or if they are not available on the Health Service.

The Healthcare Commission has just released its top list of complaints it has received about the National Health Service and coming top of the compilation was how they deal with complaints itself. Nearly one in five of all the problems they dealt with were to do with handling of patient’s criticisms. Other common grievances for NHS patients were poor communication (12%), standard of treatment (11%), delay or failure to diagnose a condition (9%) and delays in accessing care (8%). A total of 135,000 complaints were made last year of the 380 million procedures carried out.


For those people that are concerned about the level of care they receive of the NHS, private medical insurance provides a good alternative. It offers the peace of mind of a higher quality of facilities and a more personalised service without the pressure to see the high concentration of patients that the NHS has. Delays are not so much of an issue for private medical insurance policy holders because waiting lists are not a problem in private hospitals and they can choose to be seen in a clinic that is in a place suitable to them whether that is nearer to their place of work for example, or nearer to their home. Freedom Healthnet has no hospital lists, unlike other private medical insurance providers meaning that customers have more choice as to where they would like to receive their treatment meaning that it is likely to be much more convenient to them.