Consultant medical attention for everyone - without insurance

We all know that extra fear when you or someone close to you becomes unwell. Not only is there the worry about your health, but other horrible questions rear up. How long will I have to wait to be seen by my GP? Will he or she refer me to the right consultant? How long will that take? Will I get more ill while I’m on a waiting list? Is my consultant the best consultant, or just someone the GP knows? And if I have to have treatment or an operation, how do I know that it’s the right treatment? Will I get passed from pillar to post, or be treated with care and respect?

The health dangers, frustration and worry of the wait to see a consultant doctor could be a thing of the past following the launch of a new service put together by the cream of the medical profession – the consultants themselves. As.one is a consultant-led subscription service available to everyone, regardless of your health or age. It only has your interests at heart – and you don’t even have to wait to see your GP.

As.one links you directly with a network of over a thousand of the best consultants in the UK, relieving NHS waiting lists under strain. As soon as you have a health concern, you go straight to the best consultant for your condition, and get the right treatment first time. An expert is your first contact, not the last person you see. It’s not expensive, and there are no exclusions for pre-existing medical conditions.

Consultants and other medical professionals have hailed the new service as a breakthrough for patients. Bruce Braithwaite, a consultant vascular surgeon, says:

“If one of my family is ill, they’ll come to me to ask me which doctor is the best for their condition, and maybe which hospital is the best. Everyone should be able to have the same access – to be part of my extended family… If you’re ill, you want to be seen by the right person as soon as possible. Everything in the current system seems to prevent you doing that.”

Surveys show that the public are frustrated and worried about waiting times, referral times and incorrect consultant referrals. The process – often bureaucratic and not fit for purpose – costs the NHS and private healthcare companies a lot of money. As patients wait or get passed around, their condition can worsen, and certainly the worries increase. Treatment is then more difficult and more expensive. Its founders say that as.one won’t cost the Health Service a penny – in fact, it should save it a fortune.

The FirstAssist Consumer Report of this year found that adults in the UK were concerned about the treatment process. In particular, 32% were worried about the time it takes to see a specialist consultant; 32% about the time it takes to get treatment; and 30% about the time it takes to get a condition diagnosed. Over a fifth of those polled were frustrated about the time it took them to get an appointment with their GP, and getting their GP to refer them to a specialist consultant.

And actual patients’ experiences of the system were no better. In fact, in many cases, the experiences were worse than the worry. The same poll showed that patients were dissatisfied with the time it took them to get an appointment with their GP or doctor (35%); to get a condition diagnosed (56%); the quality of the treatment they received (48%); the time it took to get treated (46%); and the time taken to see a specialist consultant (44%).

The Royal College of General Practitioners’ own figures show that the current situation is likely to get worse. 80% of GPs think they have “insufficient resources to provide high quality patient care”, following the decision of 72% of them to “reduce frontline patient care due to clinical commissioning responsibilities”. 47% of GPs have cut back on services provided for patients, and over 70% were forecasting that there would be longer waiting times for patients over the next two years.

All of this could be swept away, say the founders of the new service.

With as.one, the patient is put in contact with the right and best consultant – not just the one the GP happens to know, or the one at the place nearest to the patient’s home. The as.one consultants are peer reviewed as the best, and also constantly reviewed by the service itself to make sure they are still the best in the country. Very often that can mean they are the best in the world. The results, say the managers of the service, will be no waits between referrals, no worry that you haven’t got the most relevant and best consultant for your condition, and reassurance that you’ve done the right thing by your health.

Unlike health insurance, this new service from as.one has no bars to those with a pre-existing condition, and there is no age limit – with no time-consuming and irrelevant general health checks. It also takes an objective view of private versus public health care. It’s not how it’s paid for that matters, but what’s best for the patient.

It could make a huge impact on the way people receive healthcare in the UK.

A spokesman for the as.one said: “our service is for anybody who wants to get rapid access to a specialist. The most important person is the person who is ill. It's not the doctor, or anyone else in the system. What we've done with as.one is make sure you get rapid access to the right person who can look after you and give you the advice and clinical care you need. You want to be seen by the right person, as quickly as possible. With as.one, you literally pick up the phone, and we look after you.”

Visit www.betterasone.co.uk for more information or to sign you or a friend up as a member.

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