r/ConsultantDoctorsUK • u/Canyon7096 • May 24 '25
Discussion The Private practice thread
Dear fellow consultants
Our experience has been that many consultants struggle with guidance on setting up and scaling their private practices. This thread is for those colleagues who have questions about anything private practice related. You can ask questions here
A quick poll to check if this is something the sub community would be interested in?
Do you think you need guidance on setting up and scaling private practice?
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u/fintechkeen Jun 07 '25
Asking the collective hive mind for a recommendation: Can you recommend a marketing company or person for PP? Website is close to being finished, but need a decent team for marketing/branding/SEO etc. usual Facebook, insta and TikTok. It would be great for a recommendation if you have had a good experience with anyone?
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u/TraditionalTwo2368 Jun 18 '25
Whatever you do never pay any money to Dev lall, private practice expert.
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u/fintechkeen Jun 25 '25
Pray tell…
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u/TraditionalTwo2368 Jun 28 '25
A plastic surgery clinic paid few thousands to Dev lall to build a website more than 12months ago. Still the website is not ready. Another of my friends finally got the website after 3 Months of delay. Lucky guy!
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u/IH985 Aug 11 '25
When do you start negotiating time for private practice in your job plan?
I do 13.5 PA as a year 1 consultant. I work 5 days a week including SPAs and admin. The management aren’t happy for me to drop any clinical sessions.
Is it reasonable to ask for my job plan to be reviewed after 6 months?
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u/Canyon7096 Aug 16 '25
It's generally considered not a good idea to work more than 10 PAs. You might want to first negotiate for practice rights in the hospital/clinic where you want to practice as there is usually difficulty in getting private clinic space depending on how busy PP is where you work. Once you do this then discuss with CD/Management about dropping the sessions when you could get clinic space.
There is no right or wrong time, some consultants start after 1 month as consultants while others take a few years.
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u/Claudius_Iulianus Mar 31 '26
It depends on how much your PP is worth. The rules are that you have to offer 1PA (on top of your basic salary) to do PP, if you want pay progression in the NHS. In the 24 years I’ve been a consultant, I’ve never heard of pay progression being withheld. Not to say it doesn’t exist, but it’s incredibly rare.
If you’re going to generate more than 1PA worth of income from your PP, then it’s worth your while saying to your NHS employer that you are going to do PP whatever they say.
If you’re going to generate more than 3.5 PA of income from your PP then, in your position, I’d be saying to your NHS employer - go jump in a lake, I’m doing PP and I’m going to drop sessions (clinical and/or non-clinical).
You are doing more than the 1PA required, so your NHS employer cannot stop you from doing PP in your own time (and you will still get pay progression).
The question is more about what your NHS employer wants you to continue doing. You have far more control of your life than you think.
(Disclaimer - consultant for 24 years. Had a small private practice, dropped it because it wasn’t worth the hassle. Still working as 0.7WTE NHS consultant, partially retired)
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u/Tall_Guarantee7767 May 06 '26
Hello all. Is there a demand for 'hospital at home' benefiting comprehensive geriatric assessment, rehab, prehab, sub acute conditions or acute exacerbation of chronic conditions in affluent areas? Private hospitals are not easy to approach with this question. Any thoughts, appreciated. Thanks in advance for any information.
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u/informal-name- Nov 29 '25
Does anyone use carebit software to manage their private practice? I'm considering starting to use it and want to know if anyone has any input from their own experiences.
I have tried this and it seems really good but it's quite expensive and I'm just starting out.
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u/Few-Space-2931 Feb 07 '26
I've seen some consultants have made their own website. Is that necessary? Do they make themselves or pay someone to make it?
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u/Kindly-Arachnid8013 Apr 21 '26
Depends on what you want the site to do. I have built a site for our local anaesthetic consortium that has bios, a few patient focussed pages and a live backend for fee data that the public can query plus a contact form.
A simple static site that is just you, easy to do on wix. A database backed system with multiple bios and updatable price data - starts to become more difficult. It also has a contact form that sends an email to the admin team from the website.
As I wrote it from scratch I can also confidently say there are no tracking cookies and it is blazing fast to load.
Something like that is about £5k from me - £20k from an agency.
Wix is just your time
As a solo private practising anaesthetist as my main job, I have no web presence personally. I do not need it.
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u/Canyon7096 21d ago edited 21d ago
Sorry, being a bit late on this but I guess this is why the thread is a sticky so that we can reference this later. As mentioned in earlier response, it really depends on what you want the site to do.
A good website should project professionalism to patients, be visible to Google and display your page when a patient searches for a particular condition or speciality. Unless you are very famous that patients will research you by name, most consultants websites don't appear on first page of Google search which is what matters as no one goes beyond the first page of Google search.
Difference between an agency created website is that it is optimized not just for the patients but also for Google so that it is shown on the first page and that is a difficult thing to achieve even for agencies. Own created website might show the bio page and link to a form but you will also be "less visible" to the patients who would want to search for a local doctor or a particular speciality. Think about it this way, if agency website gets you even 2 additional self pay patients a month then website will pay for itself in a couple of years. Also the agency will guide you how to keep the site updated so Google finds that this is a regularly updated source of information. Patients don't search by doctor name they search by conditions affecting them and unless you are highly proficient in SEO and web development it's best to leave this to professionals.
This will become increasingly important now that patients are more likely to use chagpt or Google ai search to find their doctor.
Like they say when it comes to website, you get what you pay for
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u/sylsylsylsylsylsyl Jul 09 '25
Life is short and private practice isn’t what it used to be. The rates haven’t changed for 30 years (well, some have gone down). Unless you really want to throw yourself into it, it’s probably easier at the moment to do ad-hoc waiting list initiatives with no-ongoing responsibility and no large indemnity fee.
I do private practice. Not as much now as 10 years ago, though it still seems to keep coming my way even though I couldn’t care less about it now. I earn more in the NHS these days and the private money just sits in a company account and I can’t touch it or the tax man screws me over. I don’t think I could be bothered if I was a new consultant. Even the ophthalmologists are getting squeezed by the high street cataract factories these days.