Frequently Asked Questions

Most consultants practising from Surrey Cardiovascular Clinic prefer to receive a GP referral, as it helps with triage and preparation for any consultation.This is particularly important because we offer one-stop testing, so we need sufficient detail to arrange what tests need to be scheduled on the day of the consultation.Where patients find it difficult to get a GP referral in time for their private patient appointment, we accept that it is not always possible to have a GP referral and providing patients give us sufficient information about the indication for seeing a consultant and the issues that need to be answered.

Since many serious heart conditions have few warning signs we offer screening packages that are suitable for patients without any symptoms. These are designed for patients who have concerns and risk factors for heart diseases and wish to be looked at, or those interested in having a health screen which is designed for this purpose, where there is no need for formal consultation (thus the cost is lower). All our screens include a consultant cardiologist report so if any issues are found in a healthscreen this will be flagged up by the specialist. For patients that are not really sure whether they need a healthscreen or formal consultation, we recommend that they complete our ‘pre-consultation’, which is free of charge with no obligation to book.

Consultants set their own consultation fees, so this would vary. However, typically a new patient consultation would typically cost between £200-300, which covers the cost consultant time and admin costs of taking the patient onto their practice, including 7 years of archiving and quite a lot of administration involved for each patient that is seen.

We display a basic price list of the lowest cost of some of our investigations on our website. The final price paid for each customer will vary depending on what combination of services and tests are ordered since we have a discount scheme for self-fund patients where discounts can be applied when multiple tests are bought as part of a package.The best way of finding out what your medical care will cost is to schedule a pre-consultation or discovery call with one of our patient care coordinators using the contact enquiry box. Our staff are expert in gathering the required information and passing it to one of our consultants who will usually offer various options for each scenario. We cost up these options and provide the patient with a written quotation of costs. There is no obligation to proceed with booking these. This system means that patients have completely transparent pricing, once we know exactly what services and tests they will be scheduled for.

Approximately half of the patients attending our clinic do not have private medical insurance, preferring to self-fund their outpatient care. For those with private medical insurance, SCVC has contracts in place with all insurance companies. It is important to remember that the patient will always be our customer, not the private medical insurance (PMI) company. PMIs negotiate tariffs and standards of care for their members, however SCVC has a separate contract for each patient seen and all patients are required to agree and sign a registration form, which includes terms and conditions for payment. If consultation and investigation costs have not been paid by the patient's private medical reimbursement scheme within 30 days of the episode of care, the patient is required to pay and settle their invoice with a view to reimbursement by their insurance company.This is the only way that we can tackle the increasing credit difficulties being caused by some private medical insurance companies deferring payments for three months.

The Surrey Cardiovascular Clinic is set in Guildford's Surrey Research Park, and unlike other local private medical providers, has free parking available for our patients.We have strict rules for all our staff and consultants to park on the road on busy clinic days rather than in the clinic car park, which means that most of the time, patients will have no difficulty in finding a car parking space. Because these are fiercely regulated, you must display a valid parking permit within ten minutes of arriving into our car park. Most patients park and then pick up a parking slip from our reception to display in their car window. Any cars not displaying this ticket will get a warning sticker and are issued a ticket on the second offence. This is the only way that the research park can control parking so close to the hospital, where in general, parking can be extremely difficult.

The clinic operates most days from 8 to 5. However, on some days, it is open from 8:00 to 19:30.Our opening times will be displayed on the website. Outside these hours, we cannot deliver care, and our patients are therefore required to use emergency services if they develop acute medical conditions requiring urgent or emergency care.We do offer a 24/7 call centre - 01483 467100.

In December 2023, the clinic launched its 24-hour call centre, which means that patients can call the clinic any time and speak to a member of our team, who can then message their consultant and/or their secretary for urgent medical matters. All calls taken out of hours are recorded, and a transcript is sent with a message to our reception team.

The clinic has a comfortable waiting area with fresh coffee, hot chocolate, tea, newspapers, and magazines. There are four consulting rooms and a number of investigation rooms facilitating the one-stop-shop principle of the clinic, allowing patients to have a consultation with testing, in many cases, all in one visit to see us for convenience.In addition, the clinic hosts the Virtual Cath Lab, which is a sophisticated CT service, offering walk-in diagnostic coronary angiography and Heartflow and CaRi heart AI-processing, making it one of the first cardiovascular centres in the UK where a cardiology consultation and angiogram can be conducted in one session.

We do not offer free consultations as we are a private medical service, and there are no NHS contracts in place at this time.However, we do offer a pre-consultation service free of charge. This involves the patient completing a detailed questionnaire with conditional logic, meaning that different questions occur depending on the answers to the earlier questions. This process is very similar to, and indeed is designed around, the questions asked during a formal consultation, so it gives our consultants a fair idea about what the medical issue is about.For patients that complete this process, or alternatively book a discovery call with one of our patient care coordinators, we are able to then pass this information to one of our consultants for them to triage the referral and give a medical opinion about what the best way of managing the patient might be. This is given back to the patient, usually with options and an estimate of costs involved. This process is useful in cases where the patient is not sure whether a consultation or a screening investigation is required. Our consultants provide this service to us and our patients free of charge, in order to help patients navigate what can be a difficult area.

We accept all major credit cards except American Express. Invoices can be settled by BACS or credit card. We do not accept cash.

All self funding patients attending our clinic have to settle their invoice prior to or on the day of their appointment and/or tests.For those patients with private medical insurance, a pre-authorisation number must be provided on the day of the appointment or the patient will need to settle the invoice directly and get reimbursed by their insurance company. There are no exceptions to this rule.Additionally, all invoices are sent to the patient, whether they are insured or uninsured, within 1 to 2 working days of any care they receive. Our terms state that these invoices need to be settled within 30 days. If the patient's private medical insurance company delays payment, we require the patient to settle the invoice and then contact their insurance company for reimbursement.The costs of operating our clinical services are predominantly staff and rental costs, where late payment runs the risk of services being shut down. We will apply a surcharge of £10 for any payment that is up to 5 days late, then 20p per day for each item on the invoice thereafter.

No, we are only licensed by the CQC to see patients over the age of 18 years.