The NHS in the news

On GMTV (sorry, Daybreak) this morning the NHS was the story du jour - both the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of people due to the shortcomings of NHS management (a follow on and one assumes a media escalation of the story involving the problems within the Staffordshire NHS Trust) and then the fall in the UK health statistics from 10th in the world to 14th.

Having worked in the NHS myself in the 1980's and been involved in the health industry since 1994 I cannot say I'm really surprised - as a purveyor of private medical insurance for my clients the stories hammer home the need for the fall back position of PMI but also as a regular user of the NHS myself (I have two pre-teen children for whom the NHS is essential) I see waste both financial and human at every turn.

Perhaps rather than bemoaning the managers within the NHS we need more, better trained ones with authority to actually make rational and money saving changes to make things more efficient ? Discuss ....

Here are links to relevant stories today on the BBC website :

BBC News - Auditor in warning to Northern Ireland health trusts http://bbc.in/WFJOzY

BBC News - UK 'lagging in Europe health league' http://bbc.in/VyFFln

BBC News - Stafford Hospital senior nurses 'changed records' http://bbc.in/163xzEi

and so on .....

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If you're interested in a free review of your medical insurance cover (family or company paid) please get in touch :

Tel - 07792 075748 or 0113 3474395

E - philknight@pch.uk.com

Twitter - @localventure1

Phil Knight

Independent Healthcare Consultant

I'm a totally independent healthcare intermediary with 20 years market experience, not tied to any insurer, full FSA regulated and part of the Premier Choice Healthcare Group. FSA Number 312878

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Coming soon ... PMICast

At the moment I'm deep in planning for a new video and audio podcast for my medical insurance business.

The aim is to put up a You Tube video 'cast and also the audio transcript on RSS/Itunes once a month. There will be a main discussion point, some news, e-mail/feedback and contact information. I've already recorded 'Episode 0' as a test and it runs to around seven minutes which seems about right - keeping it pithy and concise.

The contact e-mail for the podcast will be pmicast@gmail.com (the name of the 'cast is PMICast) - once we go live I'll add more details including show notes and when we're live on itunes and so forth.

Fingers crossed we will make this project available at least monthly moving forwards with the first proper episode any day now in March 2013.

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If you're interested in a free review of your medical insurance cover (family or company paid) please get in touch :

Tel - 07792 075748 or 0113 3474395

E - philknight@pch.uk.com

Twitter - @localventure1

Phil Knight

Independent Healthcare Consultant

I'm a totally independent healthcare intermediary with 20 years market experience, not tied to any insurer, full FSA regulated and part of the Premier Choice Healthcare Group. FSA Number 312878

Group Medical Insurance scheme leavers

When you leave a company, obviously you leave the employee benefits behind. This of course includes the private medical insurance.

On leaving a company group you are usually entitled to what is called a continuation option - this guarantees continuing cover with no additional medical underwriting but of course is paid by you directly rather than being provided free by your employer as a perk of employment.

The problem with this kind of continuation cover is that it is generally very expensive - typically far more than the equivalent plan with another insurer, even when they take you as a switching client with no additional underwriting themselves.

Bizarrely then an insurer that you have been with (possibly for years) offers worse rates than any one of five or six companies who have no idea what kind of a person or risk you are.

As a professional in the medical insurance sector for the best part of 20 years this situation with regards to continuation plans irritates me enormously - as you might imagine most people faced with having 'free' cover within a company plan (there is of course the tax benefit in kind to pay on the cover but it is a notional charge) and getting a quote for double the market rate to continue the cover tend to not bother and lose access to this valuable benefit.

The answer of course is to look at a full market review when leaving your company and at least considering a move away to a new insurer - regardless of whether you are retiring, moving jobs, setting up your own business or being made redundant it is usually better to consider a new insurer.

The main exception to this advice is if you have on-going health conditions or claims - these, depending on their nature might mean you are forced to stay with your holding insurer.

Regardless of your position, the complexity of medical insurance plans means that contacting an independent adviser like myself if almost always a good idea.

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If you're interested in a free review of your medical insurance cover (family or company paid) please get in touch :

Tel - 07792 075748 or 0113 3474395

E - philknight@pch.uk.com

Twitter - @localventure1

Phil Knight

Independent Healthcare Consultant

I'm a totally independent healthcare intermediary with 20 years market experience, not tied to any insurer, full FSA regulated and part of the Premier Choice Healthcare Group

When did you last review your private medical insurance ?

If you have private medical insurance when did you last review the cover ?

Like any product (insurance or otherwise), over time the cover can become outdated as insurers create new plans and in common with many financial services plans, insurers rarely offer the best rates to current plan holders. Preferring to use low rates to attract new customers usually.

As an independent, whole of market adviser I look at providing my clients with an on-going service to ensure their cover remains affordable and up to date over many years.

As a general rule then if you've had the cover for more than a couple of years it is worth 'sanity checking' the benefits and pricing at the next renewal - we would typically ask the following 'questions' when performing a client review :


1) Is the cover affordable still ?

2) Do the plan benefits still meet the clients need ?

3) Do we need to amend benefits to make it more affordable - e.g. include an excess or reduce out-patient benefit slightly ?

4) Is a move to another insurer possible - policy holders in good health with low claims can usually move insurers

5) Do other insurers offer equivalent/better cover at lower rates than the holding insurer


Private medical insurance is an extremely complex product area with literally hundreds of permutations of cover available from numerous insurers - if you would like a review of your cover please feel free to get in touch and we can run through what information I need to review your cover and how the process would work.

Any work undertaken for clients in this regard is usually free - I only receive commission from an insurer if you take up my recommendations or appoint me as your intermediary.

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If you're interested in a free review of your medical insurance cover (family or company paid) please get in touch :

Tel - 07792 075748 or 0113 3474395

E - philknight@pch.uk.com

Twitter - @localventure1

Phil Knight

Independent Healthcare Consultant

I'm a totally independent healthcare intermediary with 20 years market experience, not tied to any insurer, full FSA regulated and part of the Premier Choice Healthcare Group

Latest Protection News

As you may remember from a previous post I now write a number of articles on health and protection insurance and news for the Premier Choice Group. The latest of these articles went live yesterday and can be found at :

Premier Choice News page

I hope that you'll take the chance to have a read through.

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If you're interested in a free review of your medical insurance cover (family or company paid) please get in touch :

Tel - 07792 075748 or 0113 3474395

E - philknight@pch.uk.com

Twitter - @localventure1

Phil Knight

Independent Healthcare Consultant

I'm a totally independent healthcare intermediary with 20 years market experience, not tied to any insurer, full FSA regulated and part of the Premier Choice Healthcare Group

Alcohol and children

With two school age children myself the question and of kids and alcohol is one that I am beginning to think about.

The arguments between total abstinence and controlled, staged access are well known and hotly debated by both camps - whichever school of thought you belong to I'm slightly dubious about the involvement of schools and local councils - is this perhaps the nanny state gone mad ?

Check out the details of this experiment proposed by a council in the South East :

BBC News - Brighton and Hove considers anti-child drinking contracts http://bbc.in/YSWi7w

Foreign Doctors in the NHS

Since Friday of last week there has been a fair amount of press covering changes in the language requirements for EU doctors practicing in the NHS.

Medics from outside the EU have always had to prove their ability to speak english but the proposals announced recently will mean that all foreign doctors will now need to prove their ability to converse with patients here.

Follow the link below to view the details on the BBC news website :

BBC News - NHS foreign doctors must speak English, say ministers : http://bbc.in/YmBEht


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If you're interested in a free review of your medical insurance cover (family or company paid) please get in touch :

Tel - 07792 075748 or 0113 3474395

E - philknight@pch.uk.com

Twitter - @localventure1

Phil Knight

Independent Healthcare Consultant

I'm a totally independent healthcare intermediary with 20 years market experience, not tied to any insurer, full FSA regulated and part of the Premier Choice Healthcare Group

Working Late

Working for myself I tend not to bother too much about the conventions of working 9 to 5. 

In practical terms, when I'm not working, I'm not earning so for example my phone is on 24/7 (although to be fair 'do not disturb' is set on the iPhone between 10.00pm and 8.00am). 

My work pattern varies but generally I am in the office first thing around 6.30am checking e-mails. To fit in with family meals and sporting activities I will 'finish' work around 5.00pm ish but tend to have the Macbook on my lap from around 8.00 to 10.00pm in the evenings to catch up on e-mails, marketing prep and the variety of off-line tasks that can be done at leisure.

Working today I've discovered that the tasks I've been saving for the weekend (quote requests, preparing client fact finds and researching a new article) are actually some of the most boring and tedious - frankly, I've been boring myself today and writing this brief blog post has been one of the most interesting things I've done all day - sadly !

The notable exception was playing 'throw a penguin' with my seven year old (don't ask). although the game ended in tragedy for the penguin - but that's another story !

Enjoy your weekend.

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If you're interested in a free review of your medical insurance cover (family or company paid) please get in touch :

Tel - 07792 075748 or 0113 3474395

E - philknight@pch.uk.com

Twitter - @localventure1

Phil Knight

Independent Healthcare Consultant

I'm a totally independent healthcare intermediary with 20 years market experience, not tied to any insurer, full FSA regulated and part of the Premier Choice Healthcare Group

Interested in Health & Medicine

I have both a personal interest in science and medicine as a rational thinker and skeptic but also as a professional working within the healthcare field as an adviser on private medicine and related subjects I need to keep abreast with the latest in research and breakthroughs.

There are an enormous number of issues to bear in mind when assessing medical news and some of the statistics that are thrown around by the media when report such news can be both confusing and misleading.

If you would like to develop more than a passing acquaintance with how medicine works in a scientifically credible way can I suggest some important resources.

Firstly, as essential 'primers' can I suggest reading Dr Ben Goldacres books : Bad Medicine and Bad Pharma - they cover in a light and readable format some of the statistical and scientific rigours that good and bad medicine undertakes before becoming accessible to the public. Then, in some detail both books ground the reader in what to watch out for when thinking about the science and credibility of what the media, doctors, clinical practitioners and drug companies tells us about medicine and the science that sits behind it.

In addition, to develop you critical thinking capability and also to take up some of that time during your commute can I suggest that you consider downloading some skeptical/rational analysis podcasts - best to start with something like : 'the Skeptics Guide to the Universe' - a solid guide to not being fooled by irrational and unscientific nonsense.

If you're interested in a free review of your medical insurance cover (family or company paid) please get in touch :

Tel - 07792 075748 or 0113 3474395

E - philknight@pch.uk.com

Twitter - @localventure1

Phil Knight

Independent Healthcare Consultant

I'm a totally independent healthcare intermediary with 20 years market experience, not tied to any insurer, full FSA regulated and part of the Premier Choice Healthcare Group

Drug Breakthroughs

I have just tweeted an article from the BBC Health News feed that discusses the myth that access to new drug breakthroughs has fallen in the modern era.

To the contrary, researchers at Birmingham University looked at new medicines introduced between 1971 & 2011 and discovered that the rate of introduction of new drugs had increased slightly (around 0.16 per year more per year now than in the 1970's.

New drug introductions averaged at 23 per annum with the lowest in the test period being 9 and the highest 34.

Fascinating stuff and you can find full details on my tweet or follow the link below.

BBC News - Falling drug breakthroughs 'a myth' http://bbc.in/YI69Nt