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Hi thaoly10 and welcome to the Forum,

Little known fact amongst expats; the vast majority of GP's in the UK are private and their practices are private enterprises (who happen to work sometimes for the NHS); Mrs C is a practice nurse for a GP practice up here in Yorkshire; she wears an NHS uniform, ID and joined the NHS pension scheme, but is not paid by the NHS and quite often works with the GP's in private work.

This may help answer your questions.

Cynic:  I think that it's a little known fact amongst residents too........I have worked for years in health and social care and have yet to come across a private GP.  It's true that practices are run as semi autonomous 'businesses', but they aren't separate from the NHS, which funds the practice and also regulates it.  The GP holds the budget, then buys in services for patients, and so on.  Nursing staff may be paid from the practice budget, but ultimimately are still employed by the NHS.

There are, of course private doctors and clinics in the UK.  Unfortunately, I have never used one, so am unable to recommend.

Dentists and osteopaths are generally private practices.

Hi Longonot62.  I work with the NHS (as a contractor); Mrs C is a current Practice nurse; I know (both professionally and socially) a lot of Healthcare professionals across the whole of the UK and N Ireland.

Probably none (I've never met one, I meet a lot), of the GP's have a personal contract with the NHS, they are all either partners (and own the Practice, so are Directors of a private business), or are salaried GP's (employed by the practice), or are graduates finishing off their training and doing the GP element prior to doing either partner, or practice work (or even moving abroad!); none of the nurses or health care assistants have NHS contracts; all of these are officially contractors to the local CCG (via the Practice); they provide healthcare services to the NHS and are paid (basically a fixed fee for every entitled patient on the books) from the NHS budget, plus extra for additional services provided.  That just about sums up the Community Healthcare structure of the UK; not the Acute sector who are pretty much all NHS employees.

The only medical professionals in the building with NHS contracts are the District Nurses,  Midwife's and Social Workers, who have contracts with the CCG (who are a part of the NHS) and do not work for the Practice, but I can understand the confusion as they all look the same (uniforms) and work in adjacent offices to the Practice staff - they work together.

The terms under which Practices work for the CCG are that they must work to the T&C's laid down by them; these T&C's are audited by the CCG (I'm part of that process, I work for a US multinational, not the NHS).  Part of the T&C's are the rights to use NHS organisations (i.e. NHS Supplies) to support the practice, the right for the staff to pay into the NHS pension fund.  Pharmaceuticals (even the expensive stuff), are all procured from outside of the NHS.

Hope this helps.

Hi thaoly10, if you are looking for a french GP, dentist and so on , you Will probable have to see a private medic. I am myself a French expat in London and I use to see French doctors here, so I can recommend you some.
For a dentist I always go to Marie Heintz she's wonderful.
For a GP, I recommend Sophie Tournillon.  I don't have any osteopath to give you but you can check on this site: I think you will get what you are looking for on it, they have several French osteopath have a good evening

J.C

Thank you for all your replies. I got an appointment with a french doctor. My friend recommended me the site Findoc to book a medic.
I hope everything will be ok , I will keep you updated

Hi Cynic, Thanks for the information.  The current model governing how GP practices operate was 'forced' upon them by the government, was it not.  GP's that I know weren't too happy about it (I am also a health professional). 

My definition of a private practice is one that operates totally independently of the NHS ie. patients pay for consultation/treatment, privately, or through insurance.

<<As for private practices; many partner GP's only work 3 or 4 days a week for the NHS>>

Of course this is also very true of hospital based doctors and surgeons too and also in my line of work, being approached to do private work wasn't unusual.

Maybe where you are, GP's do private work, but the GP's that I worked with in my last role, in Kent, had so many NHS patients that there was absolutely no possibility of private work - they didn't have the time.  They might do reports for our service (Kent County Council), or attend meetings, on request and outside their usual role, but we wouldn't pay for these, as the view taken was that this was 'NHS work)!

Hi, like you,  I'm french and I feel more comfortable with french native doctors. I've been in London for few years now and I've always taken my medical appointments with Le Medicaire Français. This is very convenient coz there is a lot of medical specialties and the location is quiet central (Earl's Court). If you look for a GP, I highly recommend Henri Joubert: [link moderated] . He 's nice and available. However, don't forget that if you go private, you have top doctors but there's price for it! Good luck. MP if you want any further information.

Hi Thaoly,

If you are looking for a good practitioner in Chelsea, I would recommend DR Germain.
She is Canadian, trained in DC.
I use to visit here when she was practicing in Paris where I lived.
She moved to London and I was very happy because I am also more comfortable with the French-speaking dentist (This way I know better if they lies to me lol). Even if I always very afraid of pain, she is very gentle and I feel very confident with her.

N'hésite pas si tu as d'autres questions => MP.

Hope it helps