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

A patient in Leeds or Reading can usually name the one or two hospitals worth comparing. In London the first decision is geographic, because the independent hospitals are scattered across the capital and each draws mostly on its own neighbourhood. Highgate Hospital sits on a residential road beside Hampstead Heath. Spire London East stands on Roding Lane South in Redbridge, close to the Underground station of the same name. The Harley Street Clinic is on Weymouth Street, among the consulting rooms that gave the district its name. Further west, The Wellington is in St John's Wood, The Princess Grace is on Nottingham Place in Marylebone, and The Lister is beside Chelsea Bridge Road.

Two operators dominate what we could verify. HCA Healthcare UK runs the central London group, and its facilities page also lists London Bridge Hospital, The Portland and University College Hospital Private Care, which we have not described in detail because we could not read their individual pages cleanly. Nuffield Health and Spire each run a single London hospital in this guide, at Highgate and Redbridge. Beyond independent hospitals, two big NHS trusts publish private patient services of their own, covered below.

A practical consequence is that a scan, a consultation and an operation can end up in three different postcodes if you let each be arranged separately. Asking early where each step will take place, and whether the same site can host the follow-up, saves a lot of cross-London travel.

The table below only includes hospitals whose own website we retrieved this month. The specialties column paraphrases what each site says it provides; it is a description of listings, not a guarantee that every procedure is available on every day, and it says nothing about quality.

Nuffield Health Highgate is at 17-19 View Road (N6 4DJ). Its page describes a limited number of free on-site car parking spaces and free parking on surrounding roads, with restrictions on weekdays between 10am and 12pm. It states that the hospital is outside the London congestion charging zone but within the Ultra Low Emission Zone, so drivers are told to check Transport for London's vehicle rules. The page gave no Underground or bus guidance, so plan the last stretch on foot or by taxi from the nearest station. On imaging, it describes MRI through a mobile unit and CT scanning being arranged at other hospitals while its own facilities were upgraded; ask which applies when your appointment falls.

Spire London East is at Roding Lane South in Redbridge (IG4 5PZ). Redbridge Underground station is within walking distance, the 366 bus from the station stops opposite the hospital, and there are 152 free parking spaces for patients and visitors. The hospital says it is about 20 minutes from central London by tube. It has MRI, CT, ultrasound and mammography, and its endoscopy unit holds JAG accreditation. It describes itself as accepting NHS patients, insured patients and self-pay patients.

The Harley Street Clinic is at 35 Weymouth Street (W1G 8BJ). Its page puts Regent's Park and Great Portland Street stations five to ten minutes away, Oxford Circus and Bond Street within twelve, London Marylebone about fifteen, and lists the 18, 27, 30, 205 and 453 buses plus night routes. Parking is metered on the street or in independent car parks. Imaging is listed as CT, MRI, ultrasound, echocardiography, mammography, endoscopy, interventional radiology and nuclear medicine.

The Wellington is at 8A Wellington Place (NW8 9LE), near St John's Wood station, with buses 13, 46, 113, 117, 187 and 274 listed. Street parking and independent car parks are suggested. It has 30 intensive care beds and an acute admissions unit, and an urgent care centre that takes walk-ins every day of the year.

The Princess Grace is at 42-52 Nottingham Place (W1U 5NY), a short distance from Baker Street station and London Marylebone, with buses 13, 18, 27, 113 and 205 listed. It describes 127 private en-suite bedrooms and eight operating theatres. The Lister is on Chelsea Bridge Road (SW1W 8RH), reached from Sloane Square, Victoria or Pimlico, with buses 44, 137, 211, 360 and 452; its page names the Battersea Park car park, a five-minute walk across Chelsea Bridge, as the nearest. It lists full-body MRI, CT, ultrasound, endoscopy and bone density scanning.

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust publishes a private patient service across six locations: Evelina London Children's Hospital, Guy's Hospital, Royal Brompton Hospital, Harefield Hospital, St Thomas' Hospital and the Wimpole Street Consulting Rooms and Diagnostic Centre. It names heart and lung care, gastrointestinal surgery, fertility, dermatology, allergy, renal medicine, eye care, pain medicine, ENT and rheumatology among its areas, and says all income is reinvested in the trust. King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust runs an international and private patients service from Denmark Hill, listing maternity, cardiac services, haematology, liver services, neurosciences and neurosurgery; it also says private profits go back into NHS services.

NHS England's list of integrated care boards names four for the capital: NHS North East London, NHS South East London, NHS South West London, and NHS West and North London. That last name replaced two older boards, so GP letters and some websites still carry the former names. The board that commissions your NHS care follows your GP practice, not the hospital you choose privately.

London is in England, so the NHS Constitution's standards apply: the NHS says the maximum wait for non-urgent consultant-led treatment is 18 weeks, and that after an urgent suspected cancer referral cancer should be confirmed or ruled out within 28 days. Patients in England can also choose the hospital or service for a first outpatient appointment when referred by their GP. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run different waiting-time standards, which is why guides for those nations should not be applied to a London postcode.

There are three common routes, and the right one depends on how you are paying. If you hold private medical insurance, the insurer normally expects you to start with your GP, obtain a letter or a diagnosis code, and have the consultation authorised before you attend; Highgate's page tells insured patients to contact their insurer for pre-authorisation. If you are paying yourself, hospitals generally let you arrange a first consultation directly, and several London sites describe online consultant search tools. Finally, some people ask an NHS GP for a referral letter addressed to a named consultant, which helps the consultant see your history and which many hospitals welcome even when it is not compulsory.

A GP letter matters most for new symptoms that need a physical examination or a blood test result first. A direct appointment suits a well-defined question, such as a second opinion on a diagnosis you already hold. Whichever route you use, ask the hospital for the consultant's fee and the hospital's fee separately, since London sites bill both and the quote for a scan or procedure is a third element.

None of this changes your NHS rights. Having a private consultation does not remove you from an NHS waiting list, and an NHS GP can still refer you to a Right to Choose provider if that is what you prefer.

We can only report what the providers themselves say. The Harley Street Clinic's page cites more than 1,150 cardiac procedures a year. The Wellington describes Gamma Knife radiotherapy and intraoperative MRI, which are relevant mainly to brain and spine conditions. The Lister lists a fertility clinic and describes a CQC rating of Outstanding on its own page, while Spire London East and The Wellington describe a rating of Good. Those are statements from each hospital's site and not an assessment by Pulse Atlas; the Care Quality Commission publishes its own reports for each location and is the right place to read them.

Teaching-hospital private services bring a different mix. The Guy's and St Thomas' group links private care to heart and lung specialists at the Royal Brompton and Harefield sites, and King's lists liver and neuroscience work. A patient needing a rarer service often finds the answer sits in one of these trusts rather than in a general independent hospital, though that is a pattern to test rather than a rule.

Facilities and services change, so treat every detail above as a prompt to confirm with the provider at the time you are planning care.

• Where will the scan, the consultation and any procedure take place, and are they at the same site?

• Is the consultant treating you at the hospital that hosts your appointment, and are their fees separate from the hospital's?

• Does the hospital have on-site resuscitation and intensive care cover, or would you be transferred to another site if something went wrong?

• If you are insured, has your insurer agreed this hospital and this consultant for your policy?

• Which imaging is on site on your date, given that some departments are upgraded in phases?

• How will follow-up be arranged if you live at the other end of the capital?