Private healthcare in Edinburgh: hospitals, specialties and how to access them

Edinburgh's private hospitals sit on the western and southern edges of the city rather than in the Old or New Town. Murrayfield, below the rugby stadium on Corstorphine Road, serves the west. Colinton Road, running south-west through Morningside and Craiglockhart, carries Nuffield Health Edinburgh. Shawfair Park, beside the City Bypass in the south-east, is the newest of the three.

Each hospital offers planned care, meaning scans, consultations, day surgery and operations that are scheduled in advance. None is an accident and emergency department. Anyone with sudden severe symptoms should use NHS 24 on 111 or, in an emergency, 999, and the NHS emergency services at the Royal Infirmary or St John's Hospital.

The material below is meant to help you choose which questions to ask, not to point you to one provider. Services, opening arrangements and consultant sessions change, so use the hospital's own site or your insurer for anything you will rely on.

Each row reflects what the hospital's own website lists. A specialty on the list does not guarantee that every procedure in it is carried out at that site.

Spire gives the address as 122 Corstorphine Road, EH12 6UD. For rail passengers, the hospital describes a 10-minute drive from Haymarket station. The Balgreen stop on the tram line is described as roughly a 15-minute walk, and trams reach the city centre in around ten minutes, according to Spire's own wording.

Spire also warns that the hospital is a short walk up a steep driveway from the nearest bus stop. That detail is worth knowing if you use a stick or are recovering from lower-limb surgery. Parking at the site is free, and Spire notes that the drive from Edinburgh Airport takes about 20 minutes. Cycle racks are provided at both Spire sites.

Spire's treatment list for the two sites includes cardiac CT, cardiac MRI, CT, MRI and urodynamics testing, so several advanced investigations are named as available within the group of hospitals. As the page does not say which site holds which scanner, ask when you book.

Shawfair Park is at 10 Easter Shawfair, EH22 1FE, south-east of the city centre near the City Bypass and close to the Royal Infirmary side of town. Spire describes it as a five-minute walk from the Sheriffhall Park and Ride terminus, which is served by bus routes 33 and 49, and it advertises plenty of free on-site parking.

The location suits patients from Dalkeith, Gilmerton, Musselburgh and the south-east, and people travelling by car from the Borders or East Lothian who prefer to avoid city-centre traffic. For visitors without a car, the Park and Ride link is the main public route, so check bus timetables with Lothian Buses before an early appointment.

The hospital is at 40 Colinton Road, EH10 5BT. Its page says Lothian Buses routes 10, 27, 38 and 45 serve the area well via the city centre, that Waverley and Haymarket stations are a short taxi ride away, and that the airport is roughly 20 minutes by car. Free on-site parking is offered once you validate your number plate at reception.

The page lists diagnostic imaging with consultations and names cardiology, dermatology, ophthalmology, haematology, neurology, orthopaedics, pain management, urology and vascular surgery. The hospital says that it endeavours to see private patients within a week and that referrals are preferred but not mandatory. It is a planned-care site, with no emergency department.

Scotland has health boards in place of the English integrated care boards, and NHS Lothian is the board for Edinburgh and the three Lothians. Its hospital list includes the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and St John's Hospital in Livingston, which both have emergency departments, along with the Western General, the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, the Astley Ainslie Hospital, the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People and the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion.

Scottish waiting standards differ from English ones. NHS inform sets out a 12-week Treatment Time Guarantee for inpatient and day-case treatment after agreement, a 12-week target for a new outpatient appointment, six weeks for eight key diagnostic tests and an 18-week referral-to-treatment standard for 90 per cent of patients. The English right to choose does not apply, so the idea of picking an independent provider through an NHS referral is not part of the Scottish rules in the same way.

NHS Lothian asks people with non-critical problems to ring 111 before attending an emergency department, and offers minor injury unit appointments at the Royal Infirmary, Western General and St John's.

Most patients arrive by one of three routes. A GP can write a referral letter to a named consultant. Alternatively you can approach a hospital directly: Nuffield Health Edinburgh says referrals are preferred but not required, while Spire lets you search for a consultant online and arrange the appointment. Insured patients usually need the insurer to authorise the first consultation.

Whichever route you take, find out what your policy covers before the first visit, and ask for a written quotation if you are paying yourself. A quotation should separate the consultant fee, the hospital charge, the anaesthetist, tests and follow-up. Ask about the follow-up period, since problems sometimes appear after the first review.

NHS Lothian runs the Scottish Lithotriptor Centre, a kidney-stone service that has treated patients from across Scotland since 1987, from the Anne Ferguson Building at the Western General. The Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion on Chalmers Street is the centre of NHS eye care in the city, and the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Little France combines neurology, neurosurgery and neurophysiology. Private care sits alongside these services; it does not replace them for complex cases.