Positive feedback

 Although I paid to be banded, the UK National Health Service has now taken me on and so I get any treatment I need totally free. Yesterday I had a routine 6 monthly appointment at the  hospital. Here is some of the feedback I was given.

Although all the professionals in this particular NHS hospital group fully accept that band issues can arise unprovoked, their personal experience is that all the revisions they have had to do have had the same specific cause - being too tight for too long. They also, diplomatically phrased, implied that some private surgeons do not follow their patients enough and so allow this over tightness to go on. Most of their re-ops were for people who had been banded elswehere and then taken on by the NHS. This is actually quite a common theme in the UK, people get work done privately ( often cosmetic surgery and often as cheaply as possible!), things go wrong,  the NHS picks up the pieces!

The rate of re-operation for this specific hospital group is around 1.5%. Most are band re-positioning not removal.  Incidentally, they do all 4 of the major wls.

Kate

That is really interesting (and informative!) information.  Thank you for sharing!

betsey

 that is very interesting Kate- as much as I hated my hospital stay (I was NHS), I have to say the aftercare is more and more improving. I had a feedback form filled in right after I left the hospital and my comments were no good, as you can imagine. But every time I go to the C&W hospital, I have the feeling people are more friendly and they actually take their time and nasty nurses are now only the exception! 
After my last fill, I had to promise the nurse to call me straight away if I think it is too tight, otherwise we see each other at another follow-up appointment 4 weeks later. I am really pleased for you that NHS took over, and thank you for this information!
Evelyn

 Evelyn, next time you go, if the nurse is chatty, ask about their re- op rate. It seems to me to be the case that people simply do better in the UK and Australia than they do in the US. My private doc and now the NHS have very low re-op rates and most of their banded people seem happy!

We get so many on OH who know lots of people with problems. It just doesn't seem like that over here! The 25 who meant to come to Reading last time ( not all made it) were all happy!

Odd! 

Kate

Congrats on not having to pay out of pocket anymore. I have insurance coverage for my band now finally after having had it for over 5 years, and it's a huge load off my mind!

 Interesting,  have seen several people ask if you can get band insurance.

Oh, I don't have specific lap-band insurance, I just finally have an employer sponsored insurance that doesn't exclude WLS!

 Ah! I was a bit surprised!