A private consultation costs a few hundred pounds, and most people book one knowing nothing about the person they are about to see beyond a photograph and a biography written by that person.
The information needed to check them properly is free, public and takes about two minutes. Almost nobody uses it, mainly because nobody has mentioned that it exists.
Start here
How to check a doctor’s credentials is the practical one. GMC number, registration status, licence to practise, specialist register, restrictions — where to look and what each one means.
What the titles mean explains consultant, specialist, associate specialist, Mr rather than Dr for surgeons, and the letters after the name. Some are protected and meaningful. Others anyone may use.
Questions to ask before booking covers what to ask a clinic, and which answers should make you pause.
What a Harley Street address tells you
It tells you where someone rents consulting rooms.
The Harley Street Medical Area has been the centre of British private medicine since the nineteenth century, and a great many distinguished doctors work there. Rooms in it are also available to hire by the session, by anyone who pays. Both things are true at once, which is why the address alone cannot be the basis for choosing anybody.
The Harley Street area explains what it actually is and how rooms there are let. The history explains how the reputation was built.
Before you spend anything
What private care costs sets out the structure of private fees, including the parts that are not in the headline price — tests, follow-ups, prescriptions, and the costs that arrive after the first appointment.
Red flags describes the patterns worth noticing in private healthcare marketing, from vague credentials to pressure to decide today.
Who regulates whom
Not everyone offering private treatment is a doctor, and the title “doctor” is not itself protected in the UK. Who regulates whom lists the bodies that hold the public registers — the GMC for doctors, the GDC for dentists, the HCPC for psychologists and several other professions, the NMC for nurses — and how to search each one.