Private urology in Edinburgh: prostate, stones and bladder care

Spire's Edinburgh treatment page sets out urology in more detail than most: prostate surgery and laser prostate surgery, kidney stone treatment, bladder investigations, circumcision, vasectomy reversal and hydrocele surgery. The main page for the two hospitals also features Aquablation therapy for an enlarged prostate and lists urodynamics testing among its diagnostics, and men's health is a named specialty.

Both Murrayfield and Shawfair Park share the listing, so the site for a particular clinic has to be confirmed. Murrayfield is on Corstorphine Road, 10 minutes by car from Haymarket station, with free parking and a tram stop at Balgreen about 15 minutes' walk away. Shawfair Park is on Easter Shawfair, a five-minute walk from the Sheriffhall Park and Ride, with bus routes 33 and 49.

Several urological tests need a full bladder, so travel time matters: ask whether you will be asked to arrive with a comfortable bladder or to drink on arrival.

Nuffield Health Edinburgh lists urology among its specialties, together with diagnostic imaging for outpatients. The page does not itemise individual procedures, so a patient who has been advised to have a specific operation should ask directly whether the hospital performs it.

The hospital is at 40 Colinton Road. It names Lothian Buses routes 10, 27, 38 and 45 and a short taxi ride from Waverley or Haymarket. Free parking is available after number-plate validation. It is a planned-care hospital, so a man with sudden inability to pass urine or severe loin pain should attend an NHS emergency department or phone 999 rather than ask for a private appointment.

NHS Lothian describes a hub-and-spoke urology service. The hub is the Western General Hospital on Crewe Road South, with consultant clinics also held at Borders General Hospital in Melrose, St John's Hospital in Livingston and Roodlands in Haddington. All consultants provide general urology within their timetable while also holding sub-specialist roles.

The Scottish Lithotriptor Centre is in the Anne Ferguson Building at the Western General. It is described as a specialist team treating kidney stones for patients across Scotland since 1987, made up of urologists with a special interest in stone disease, radiographers, radiologists and nurses. The centre lists bus routes 19, 24, 29, 37, 38, 47 and 113, car parks 1 and 2, and patient transport arrangements.

A private patient with stones may still end up in this service for lithotripsy, whichever sector made the diagnosis, so continuity of records is worth discussing.

Prostate enlargement causes slow flow, getting up at night and a feeling of incomplete emptying. First-line care is usually medication, and surgery or a newer procedure is considered if symptoms persist. A raised PSA blood test needs careful explanation, since it may reflect infection or benign enlargement as well as cancer, and an MRI scan is often used before a biopsy.

Kidney stones cause sudden loin pain that comes in waves, sometimes with blood in the urine. A CT scan identifies the stone, and treatment ranges from fluids and pain relief to shock-wave lithotripsy or ureteroscopy. Blood in the urine without pain, or a persistent bladder problem, may lead to cystoscopy, a camera test of the bladder.

• PSA test, prostate MRI and biopsy

• Flexible cystoscopy for blood in the urine

• Urodynamics for bladder storage and emptying problems

• Stone imaging and lithotripsy or ureteroscopy

• Day-case procedures such as vasectomy reversal and hydrocele surgery

Some results, such as a raised PSA, are worrying. Ask in advance how quickly you will be told and by whom.

• Whether your insurer treats the investigation and any procedure as covered.

• Which site hosts the clinic if you choose Spire.

• What the quotation includes for pathology, imaging and the anaesthetist.

• How results are returned, particularly a biopsy, and who explains them.

• What the aftercare plan is, including a catheter, if one is likely.

NHS inform gives a 12-week standard for a new outpatient appointment, six weeks for eight key diagnostic tests and a 12-week Treatment Time Guarantee for inpatient and day-case treatment once agreed. A suspected cancer is dealt with on a faster pathway, and a patient with an urgent referral should not hold up NHS investigation while waiting for a private appointment unless the clinician agrees.