Hospitals

Hospitals are places which provide treatment and care for people or patients. Hospitals can offer a wide range of treatments which cover accidents and emergencies, for example, a road traffic accident through to overnight stays for minor procedures. They are able to carry out both medical and surgical treatments as well as providing other services such as physiotherapy, antenatal classes and psychological counselling.

There are various types of hospitals such as general, specialised, teaching and clinics. A general hospital can deal with a vast array of illnesses and injuries and will have facilities for emergency care as well as more long term stays. It will cater for people of all ages, from the very young to the very old. A specialist hospital will handle a specific set of illnesses or injuries, for example, a children’s hospital or a trauma centre dealing with various crises. A teaching hospital is designed to train the next generation of medical professionals. It is very often linked to a medical school.

Clinics are a smaller version of a hospital and tend to only provide a limited range of services, such as outpatient care, for example, a physiotherapy clinic or a sports injury clinic. In many countries, hospital treatment has to be paid for, usually through a private health insurance scheme. This differs in the UK, which has a system funded by the taxpayer called the National Health Service (NHS).

This is free at the point of delivery, except for prescriptions, eye care and dental treatment though help is available for those individuals who are unable to pay and meet a set of pre-defined criteria. There is also the option to ‘go private’ which means paying for medical treatment via a health insurance scheme such as BUPA. You will not be able to get your health insurance or medical cover plan to pay for elective surgery such as procedures and treatments ranging from cosmetic surgery and laser eye surgery.

They will also not pay for private treatments for procedures such as hair loss or weight loss.

We also cover have indepth information on specialist hospital equipment including hospital catering and patient and disability services.