Ramsay Health Care UK Reviews 

My husband had a pre-assessment for a small surgical operation on the 11th December 2024 and the nurse who did it was an absolute disgrace. Her attitude was appalling. When he had the procedure, the ward he was on, and the nursing staff, were absolutely brilliant. I have complained about the pre-assessment nurse who should not be a nurse. This is for Springfield Hospital in Chelmsford.

Ramsay have asked for more details. I am the wife of the patient so do not wish to give out his name in public. If they would like to get in touch with me privately, I will give his full name.

Edited 22nd January 2025

Ramsay have not got in touch with me, so they obviously do not care.

Edited 30 January 2025

We've received a letter from Springfield Hospital from the Hospital Director apologising for the nurse in question. It is a very nice letter and the nurse has been told of her behaviour and apparently apologised. To be honest, her apology probably isn't genuine as that would be the way she normally acts, but we appreciate the letter from the Hospital Director.

I had a full right hip replacement, after the surgery my right leg 33mm longer than the left, Thanks the painful walking because of this mistake. I never had a problem with my knee or my ankle, now I have, because my Body can not tolerate this mistake

I visited the orthopaedic surgeon at Ramsey healthcare fulwood,and been back and forth for over a year without any results and after being given 3 operation dates two cancelled due to consultant leave the letter stated. I am in a lot of pain and the longer it’s left the worse it is and seem to be getting further away from getting it sorted no support offered of what can be done in the interim to help. Myself and my partner have both used our holidays to book the 2 dates off and now have wasted the days as work won’t change them am just praying my third date doesn’t get cancelled due to consultant leave !!

2 weeks now since my surgery at The Yorkshire Clinic in Bingley.
Under the care of urology Consultant Mr Alistair Stewart from start to my discharge, everything was absolutely excellent. Pre-op and surgery was as you would expect, very well prepared, highly professional and detailed. Food incredible and always very well looked after by all nurses and catering. Wish the bed, pillows and sheets would have been a little more comfortable but just a bit of feedback.
Very highly recommended.

I had an NHS Operation as a day case patient to remove a large cyst/ganglion from my finger.
A clean hospital which had attentive medical and other staff producing a calm experience.
The room was first class and the procedure went smoothly with a good outcome. Mr.Butt, the consultant and the anaesthetist put me at ease and were highly professional.
Thank you for resolving my problem.

This relates to two operations performed at New Hall Hospital near Salisbury to unsuccessfully repair the same inguinal hernia. It also has wider implications as the second surgery and handling of the formal complaint was performed by Ramsay Healthcare UK's group medical director.

I first visited the hospital in December 2022 for a pre op consultation to repair an inguinal hernia. The consultation lasted only three minutes and the visit didn't register on my Google maps journey that day.

The first minute consisted of the surgeon talking about how many thousands of surgeries he's previously performed and he claimed a 100% success rate.

He then did a 5 second visual exam only confirming the presence of a hernia. He failed to confirm the size or location of the hernia. Under nice clinical guidelines and also the instructions for use issued by Medtronic in relation to the Dextile mesh that was ultimately implanted in my surgery, the size and location must be documented as part of the clinical examination. This information forms part of the surgical plan that any responsible hospital would make as part of obtain informed consent from the patient.

The size and location of the hernia also dictates the surgical approach ie keyhole or open and then that dictates the size and placement of the mesh.

No attempt was made to perform these detailed examinations pre-operativly. No attempt was made to obtain my informed consent at the pre-op, instead the risks were described by the surgeon as things they have to put down on the form and they were of no relevance.

Anyway, moving on to the surgery and with no individual surgical plan in place the proceeded to perform the surgery. The mesh manufacturers instructions for use require a second check of the pre-surgical measurements in surgery. Again these were not performed.

As a result of the lack of diligence it was not noticed that my hernia was out of the usual position as it was caused by direct impact from a bicycle handlebar followed by a sickness bug 27 years later.

The mesh used was way to large and way to rigid for a small hernia in an athletic 37 year old male. The mesh almost completely missed the hernia. For a diligent surgeon, it would have been immediately obvious that this was the wrong choice of prosthetic implant.

The repair was quite obviously wrong by day 19 of the recovery period. Anyway, it took almost a year to be referred back to the hospital for this to be looked at again. On return to the hospital the surgeon pre-emptivly dismissed the issue as a musculoskeletal issue, but procedures required him to get an ultrasound scan done.

The scan was performed which did find the problem area but strangely reported an issue 6-7 cm away from the site of the scan. An ultrasound doesn't have sufficient field of view to accidentally be this inaccurate.

At this point the group medical director took over my care and he performed the diagnostic laparoscopy on me after two telephone consultations and a face to face appointment.

I talked the surgeon through the problems in particular the lack of coverage around the site of the hernia. During the diagnostic laparoscopy all of this was conveniently overlooked and the hernia was presumed to be conventionally located around the entrance to the inguinal canal.

The attitude of the hospital since this point is has become increasingly evasive. They've tried to claim that there's no problem and that the hernia is adequately covered but they have made zero attempt to verify it's size, location or mesh coverage.

I have requested copies of the laparoscopic images but for the last 7 months, they have sent redacted printouts that are so heavily darkened the mesh can't be demonstrated. They claim that this is best they can print however they've had my email address on record for the last two years. There's nothing stopping them from emailing me copies over.

In response to my questions as to why they used such a large heavyweight mesh, they claimed that they use medium weight mesh and have never experienced these problems when using medium weight meshes.

Eventually 2 and half months after making a formal complaint, they changed their stance to no comment.

The hospital feels this is simply a difference of opinions between myself and the surgeons.

Interestingly the group medical director claimed in the complaint response that in relation to my concerns over the shortness of the examinations, the visual examination is secondary to their expertise.

Having read the international hernia surge guidelines, they do not advise that experienced surgeons can substitute expertise for diligence.

I have read other similar reviews to this in relation to other Ramsey UK group hospitals. It's hardly surprising when the group medical director is so overtly complacent.

Went to Winfield Hospital, Gloucester, for routine surgery, similar to that which I had many years ago but which is no longer provided by the NHS, not being an emergency.
I found the organisation to be incompetent from beginning to end. They didn't take the trouble to know anything about my case, or what to do. The operation was cancelled once because they failed to take my blood pressure in the pre-operation assessment. When it went ahead 3 months later, I was discharged the following day and presented with a pile of bandages without any guidance on dressings or aftercare. I requested some antiseptic wipes since the wound was still bleeding, but though I was told I could have some, after several hours waiting none were provided. A week later the wound developed an infection. Luckily I was taken to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and had an emergency operation the following morning. This was followed by a week in hospital and 3 weeks of home visits while the wound healed - all on the NHS of course.
Ramsay Health Care are to be avoided. When they mess up there are never any consequences for them, and in fact I believe them to be a danger to public health. The additional burden this and other private hospitals put on the NHS also really should be investigated.

Having already had one hip joint replaced privately I was a little concerned when I had my other replaced on the NHS via Ramsay Health Care at the Woodlands Hospital.
However, the experience far exceeded that of my previous operation! From the initial consultation to being signed off. The standard of care was awesome, the actual operation was far superior and very much more professional.
The consultant I met with was Mr. Suresh Srinivasan and seriously I don't believe I could have had anyone better!
By comparison to my previous hip replacement, no bruising, last one I was heavily bruised which lasted for weeks. Last hip done has left me with no feeling around the operated area, this one has full feeling. This one, the scar has within a few weeks is looking about the same as the other side which took a couple of years to start to look normal. This one I was walking without support within two days! Also I didn't need any painkillers after around 7 days!
So in conclusion I couldn't recommend Mr. Srinivasan and Ramsay Health Care high enough, awesome service.

I booked a private appt with Mr Jindal, a week ago. I spent most of the next day filling in their forms (including a very laborious date of birth entry!) and the morning of the appointment preparing information to take. I arrived 40 minutes early, so waited outside (Stourside Hospital). I went in, booked in at reception (15 minutes early). 27 minutes after my appointment was due, I was called into a cramped corridor, only to be told that Mr Jindal was on annual leave and would I like to book an appointment in a weeks time. Alternatively, they could TRY to find another ENT Specialist for the following day...but they weren't sure who or whether there would be anyone available. I walked out shell-shocked! What an out-of-this-world experience! This was the PRIVATE health service, wasn't it?????

PLEASE DO NOT GO HERE AS A PRIVATE PATIENT. I went here as a private patient. Initially the dr said he totally understood what was needed. He gave me a quote of £7k surgery was carried out and straight away i noticed a error. He kept denying it saying i needed to heal etc etc. 1 year later i looked worse. So i was told i needed another surgery. He kept saying you cant go anywhere else because you cant afford it. I agreed to have another procedure done by him.Again paid for it, i am worse off. I wish i didnt go here at all i wish someone had told me to avoid this place i thought because it was in uk and not abroad id be better off. Im now in the process of taking legal action. My solicitors have told me it could take a few years and that i cant have corrective surgery to have this resolved til the case has been settled. Ive been to see independant specialists that my solicitors sent me to, who agree that my situation is bad and the so called work that the surgeon has claimed and recorded has NOT BEEN DONE. I cant breathe from one nostril.My face is a mess and im living with it and God knows how long i will have to remain this way. I didnt fo abroad and opted for surgery in the uk and i felt i had a botch job.
I contacted the surgeon and asked if we could resolve it between us as i cant bear staying like this for a few years. He ignored me.

Great experience, had hand surgery performed by Mr. Shafighian, nice man, discharged the same day, great pre-care and after-care on the day, lovely staff, Queenie, Nima, Helen, Lisa the physio and the friendly chap on the desk who welcomed me with a hello followed by my name and a thumbs up as I left for surgery ( sorry no name, young black guy, so polite!) a lovely experience, the people make it, so look after them please. I’d recommend this hospital to anyone. Well done! In the nicest possible sense I hope I won’t be back.

Update August 2025. Still no records and they are claiming no id was provided, despite me chasing many times it took until the past few weeks to say to the ico 'we didn't have id. Having paid around £800 for consultation and mri in October, in August I'm still unaware of content of consultations or share with nhs - now having waited the standard nhs
waiting list

No pre visit info and expected me to have a crystal ball with this information. Possible diagnosis shared with GP (no copy received) and even when the original diagnosis was completely wrong and an urgent cancer referral was needed the consultant stopped making contact.
Ramsay themselves don't answer calls to either the registered office or head office.
The data protection officer is equally impossible to contact and does not reply to emails (the only contact method available)
Patient experience team answer a third of complaint and give no escalation

The reply! Sir, I'm hoping you are aware how hard I have tried to contact you after the CQC gave me your name. Your dpo still has not made contact so I guess we are going to the ico also.

It looks like ramsay are happy for necessary cancer referrals to no happen and you refuse to discuss or do anything

I had a knee replacement on 15/09/2024 following surgery I was left in urine bed sheets for several hours with the excuse they were short staffed. I pressed my buzzer as needed to go to the toilet no one came. I had to wet myself very degrading and my splint sheets and bandages were wet through. There were signs everywhere to press the buzzer to get out of bed I did this and got told off for not getting out of bed. I was in so much pain I was screaming still no one came. I envelope tried to telephone the ward several times from my mobile no answer. I was eventually prescribed additional pain relief from the doctor but the nurse wouldn’t give it to me even though it was on my record signed by the doctor. Then came the physio who gave me a booklet went through it once, walked me in and down the ward and up and down the stairs once and told me I was fit to go home (they appeared too busy getting ready for the next days operations).
Finally I got my follow up appointment which should be after 6 weeks to tell me I’m fit to drive and work etc I received a letter with a telephone consultation for 10th January 2025.
To be honest if you get a chance to have your surgery done somewhere else I would take the opportunity. There was a definite lack of empathy and the care was horrendous I felt like I was at a meat market would not recommend this hospital.

Had an appointment booked to have a consultation with the Renacres Hospital Knee Specialist for Oct 4th as it would be just after I get my benefits and would make it possible for me to get to the appointment, only for the Specialist to Cancel my appointment in favour of a Private Patients Surgery on that day. Not to mention I specifically asked for that date because it would make it financially possible for me to attend, now they expect me to find £60 in taxi fares to get myself there (which they have outright refused to reimburse mind you)

This type of conduct is outright scandalous, the fact that Practitioners are able to Cancel long standing NHS appointments in favour of their paying Private Patients is wrong. Once an appointment is agreed to they should not be able to Cancel.

I suffer with Combined Type ADHD, Social Anxiety and Depression and changes like this right before the expected appointment only send my headspace into a tailspin. Absolutely disappointed with the set up at Renacres and I haven't even been to an appointment yet.

I had surgery booked and arrived only to have it cancelled on the same day as the
anaesthetists declined to carry it out due to an underlying health condition. This was despite it being given the green flag by a different anaesthetists during my pre-op assessment.

In the Kettering hospital the ENT surgeon only offers 1 day a month of surgery and there are only 2 days of anaesthetists appointments per week. Even the NHS has better offerings!

Everything is so inefficient too, by pen and paper and trying to phone and get through to an actual person is so difficult.

If you're going to use a private hospital avoid this one.

I'm really really mad at the way I've been treated.

Had my left hip replaced 17/9/24 at the oaks hospital Colchester. My op was nhs funded. My surgeon mr Massa was brilliant. On the ward the staff were brilliant especially nurse Gabriel she has an amazing personality and put me at complete ease. The care I received was great from arriving to being discharged

In October last year I was sent an appointment for this year. I rang up to rearrange it today only to be met with incredulity as the consultant had left some time ago and there was no such appointment "my love". I asked if there was any indication that the hospital had contacted me to let me know, and, no, "my love", there wasn't. No apology or anything. Just so glad I found out before I made the trip across county, "my love"!

The response that the hospital has given to this complaint is simply incorrect and I have the letters to prove it. In October last year the consultant who has now left arranged a review this September for various tests to be done. The rationale for this is set out in her letter and appears as valid now as it was last September. This is the appointment which is the subject of this review. She at the same time arranged a scan which, as I recall because of her absence, was reviewed by another doctor, who did indeed discharge me from HIS care, not the hospital's and not the care of the first and principal consultant. The hospital's response is alas another example of a slovenly and incomplete grasp of the facts, with which I became all too wearily familiar whilst their patient. It would be nice to know why the tests ordered last year are now deemed no longer necessary as the October letter makes clear that they were quite independent of the scan result. Do I hope for too much, however?

A private appointment was arranged for my unwell and elderly father at Ramsay Oaks Hospital, Colchester CO4 5XR on July 10th 2024 at a fee of £150 which was paid at the end of the appointment.

The appointment was made as my father had a private MRI scan carried out by another hospital on July 1st 2024 which raised concerns over a lesion on his lungs and suggested further evaluation.

My father made an appointment with his local GP who simply glanced at the two A4 pages detailing the MRI scan and prescribed Co-codamol and Amitriptyline which completely knocked him out and made his speech incoherent. This was not acceptable, thus a private appointment with Ramsay Oaks Hospital was made.

At the appointment the doctor read the MRI report and emphasised further evaluation was necessary as the report advised. The doctor gave my father and I the option to have more tests done at Ramsay Oaks Hospital or said she would arrange for a fortnight referral with the my fathers own practice due to the concerns raised by the MRI as to a malignancy.

We were advised the cost of having all tests done at Ramsay Oaks would be "thousands", plural. I suggested that we proceed by arranging the fortnight referral via the NHS and in the meantime we have "a" blood test carried out at Ramsay Oaks. "We can do it now" replied the doctor. We then paid the £150 consultation fee and after a half hour wait, one blood sample was taken and we left the hospital.

The following day, July 11th 2024, the doctor called myself and advised she had called my father and explained his blood test had showed many abnormalities including high calcium and he must go into hospital straight away. Firstly I must collect a letter marked AMSDEC from her normal surgery and then present my father at the AMSDEC department of Colchester General Hospital. This was done and my father was admitted to the General Hospital on the same day.

A subsequent CT and PET scan showed my father had a lung malignancy, Multiple Myeloma of the thoracic spine which appeared to have metastasised to one side of his ribs and also some fluid on his lungs. A further 3 hour MRI was performed at the General Hospital and two hours after this was completed a doctor appeared at my fathers bedside to advise any therapy offered would be on a palliative care only basis. Radiotherapy could be offered but it would probably do more harm than good at this stage and a terminal prognosis of two weeks to two months was given.

My father was discharged from the General Hospital on the afternoon of Friday August 2nd 2024. By this time the family had arranged for a company to install a stairlift for him and the hospice had arranged for a special electric bed to be delivered and set up at fathers house.

The same day I opened some of my fathers letters, one of which was a statement only from Ramsay Oaks Hospital for £673!

I telephoned Ramsay Oaks credit control. At first I was advised that they would not speak to myself, thus I explained they had a problem as my father was very unwell. I was then informed an invoice would be posted.

On Tuesday August 6th the invoice arrived. Rather than one blood test which had been requested, the invoice listed EIGHT blood tests! Again I called credit control. I made clear I had asked for "a" blood test meaning one blood test. At no point had I asked for EIGHT blood tests. At no point had the doctor stated she wished to carry out EIGHT blood tests. I was only prepared to pay for one Standard Full Blood Count test.

I advised the invoice for EIGHT tests was equal to someone taking their car into a garage and asking for a oil and filter change and upon collection, the garage presented a bill for a major service, overhauling the brakes and changing the suspension. No one is going to stand for that.

Later that same day I received a call from credit control to advise the doctor was away until August 19th and credit control could not discuss the matter with the doctor until then. I explained this made no difference as I was only prepared to pay what I had asked for. One blood test.

On August 21st 2024, Ramsay Oaks credit control telephoned again to advise they had spoken to the doctor and the doctor had said all EIGHT tests had been agreed. This was not the case. At no time had I asked for EIGHT tests or been informed any more than ONE test would be conducted.

I then suggested to credit control that if they could produce a written agreement signed by my father or myself which advised EIGHT blood tests were ordered, I would pay the invoice. Otherwise I was only prepared to pay for the ONE test which I asked for.

I heard nothing more until September 10th when credit control phoned again. I repeated what I had said and was told the invoice could not be discounted. At this point I advised I was not prepared to enter into a he said/she said discussion and ended the call.

Hi just had my third cancellation at at Ramsay Rivers Hospital Sawbridgeworth with NHS CHOOSE AND BOOK last today at two hours notice, and have been waiting for over a year, two if I include the first Doctor who left because he only wanted to do the higher paid private work so I cannot recommend this Ramsay Rivers Hospital

Absolutely disgracefully treated at Euxton hall went for surgery and after all my obs seen consultant , physio, anaethasist, nurse and waiting three and a half hours prepped for surgery they cancelled it due to the fact I was at a nhs hospital three days prior to this with chest pains and even after they did a ECG X-ray and bloods at NHS hospital and came back all clear and after Euxton hall also did a ECG on day of operation and it came back all clear !! And now they are saying they have been in contact with me re this NO ONE has contacted me re this !!!