Cyber Knife treatment

Is it possible to request this kind of Cyber Knife treatment to your consultant. Can this be done on the NHS. If not how much would this kind of treatment cost paying privately. Thank you

Also, I have been doing a lot of research about the treatments carried out at the Christine Private Care. Can a referal be requested to be treated at that facility under the NHS. If so would waiting times still be lengthy.

Would paying private at this facility help to speed up waiting times.

Thank you so much 

  • Hello Klh97 and thanks for posting, 

    CyberKnife is available in a few NHS centres, but it isn't a treatment that would be recommended for everyone with cancer. 

    When possible, surgery is often the recommended treatment for many primary cancers including kidney cancer which you mentioned on another post. But established treatments can vary from cancer to cancer and situation to situation.  

    Private care is a paying system, so although anyone can be treated privately they need to be able to afford it or have medical insurance that would pay. The NHS occasionally pays for patients to be treated in private hospitals, I think usually to clear a NHS backlog. I doubt that the NHS would routinely pay for someone to be treated at a private hospital, there would have to be very specific circumstances for this to happen. But there is no harm asking the specialist about this and any other question that comes to mind. 

    Paying for private health care can potentially speed up things up a bit, but by how much depends on the waiting times in the private system compared to the NHS and what the difference is. I'm afraid this isn't something I can tell you.

    I am not sure of the situation, but it is usually a good idea to talk things like this through with the specialist team involved and ask what they think. If there is a delay in the NHS that can be offset by going private, ask if they think it will have much impact overall.

    We have some general information about NHS cancer waiting times here

    Please call us if you want to talk anything over, our number is Freephone 0808 800 4040 and we are around weekdays from 9-5.

    Best wishes,

    Julia