I've received an email from privatebloodtests.co.uk which is part of Blue Horizon. They offer traditional blood tests at astronomic prices. No doubt they will have 'offers' but my view is that we should, when possible, boycott these companies.
There is great temptation to see more blood tests as better care, I know I've fallen into that trap in the past.
Here is the cost of running a TSH, fT4, fT3 assay from various companies: -
jimh111 The companies on the Thyroid UK list are those that support Thyroid UK (by regular donations). Randox is a relative newcomer to the home testing market (Started in 2023 I think). Their thyroid kit is excellent value for money.
But MMH do a Full Health Screen (fingerprick test) which is also very good value for money, as it includes so many of the things we want to test (B12, Vit D, iron, folate etc) as well as the thyroid ones. I've never had an issue with MMH, but I know there have been members who have had the odd hiccup with them. monitormyhealth.org.uk/full...
Morning This is amazing news, as Randox accept samples from Ireland at such a reasonable price! Is there any way to pin this post? Thanks for the research!Siobhan
I don't think it would be helpful to have this pinned. We might consider doing a special post about testing at some point, as with so many companies on this bandwagon, it can be complicated trying to figure out all the different variations.
I have come to the thinking that Thyroid UK should not recommend a test provider, however I understand that those that are recommended donate to Thyroid UK.
I am baffled by that price, and I wonder if it is actually a mistake. I've used the same website several times for this particular test bundle - doesn't include Free T3 - but does include phlebotomy. I don't have to send off the blood either - it gets sent to the lab as part of test.
When I want Free T3 done I buy the cheapest test I can which includes TSH, FT4, and FT3. Even doing things that way it comes to less than £213 for a lot more tests than the one linked by jimh111.
At Medichecks the TFT (TSH/ FT4/ FT3) test is just £45 and the full Well Woman/Man test is only £159 before any discounts! Seems to me that those labs are ripping people off and should be avoided!
The private blood test market is booming, partly in reaction to our creaking NHS, and as usual their key market are the worried well. Its a massive rip off.
Tbf though if they hadnt cocked up you would have paid just shy of £200 for a blood test and my cynical brain thinks that if they can just dismiss £189 just like that, then it shows they are making a very healthy profit by over inflating their prices.
Yes but the NHS alternative is zero. Plus hours wasted on hold listening to their awful hold music, possibly, but not necessarily getting to speak to anyone who could even offer a blood test. Eventually getting someone to agree to a blood test, getting an appointment 3 weeks later, having to take time off work, going for blood test then getting nothing back to give to my consultant. So absolutely free but absolutely useless in the extreme.
It is more than ignorance! It is deliberately going against NICE guidelines. My GP indicated this is a dictat from the 'Masters'. It is no good to anyone, except hyperthyroid people, to test for TSH and T4 only. I shall refuse tests in future.
Am I correct in assuming that the higher prices include someone coming to physically take the blood and the lower prices are for finger prick tests done by oneself?
It is wise to check very carefully because some tests are DIY fingerprick, some are 'sort out your own phlebotomy' and some are done by appointment at a private hospital. Hence this accounts for a massive variation in prices'.
jimh111 To be fair, the £213 test through privatebloodtests.co.uk is not a DIY test. It's done by appointment at a Spire hospital. So you can probably blame Spire for the majority of the price.
I believe Spire charge around £20 for taking blood but a big company would be able to get a much reduced cost. The bottom line is we need to be vigilant and price sensitive or we will be exploited.
'I believe Spire charge around £20 for taking blood'
Many years ago, I had thyroid bloods done at a Spire. They were requested through a private endo. It cost me well over a hundred even then (on top of the endo's own consult fee)
'we need to be vigilant and price sensitive or we will be exploited.'
Indeed, this is true for most things, not just blood tests.
I have mine done through blue horizon. The gold thyroid test is about £100 (so £90 post discount). Phlebotomy is £30 with one of their providers, or £55 for a phlebotomist to come to you. All much less than the £213 you’ve quoted. There are about 14 tests run as part of the gold level test, which I’m not sure how compares to the one you linked.
TheMudRunner, the £213 test (originally quoted by jimh111 , not me) is for an appointment at a Spire hospital, so it's important to ensure comparing like for like when investigating private testing.
I used blue horizon for the full thyroid screen including ferritin and folate but the test results came back without ferritin and folate saying against each homogenised ..sorry if that's spelt incorrectly. Basically could not get a reading from the sample. Very disappointing. No offer of a retest so I emailed several times and made a complaint. I received a test for ferritin and folate after several weeks. Not a great experience using blue horizon.
I had this with my second test, and not my first. It’s a known issue with those tests and finger prick blood samples so to avoid you’d need to pay to have a blood draw. They’re open about it on their webpages which is probably why they didn’t offer to repeat. They have offered replacement tests with no quibbling to other users too.
I would guess all companies have their good and bad reviews tbh.
One what? Spire? I'm one who lives in a very rural location and there's no private hospitals at all near me. And no-one wants to travel the distance to my home to take my blood either!
Blue horizon use other local outlets (an aesthetics clinic near me, Nuffield health, and Superdrug amongst them). I am sure being rural doesn’t help, but your local gp surgery will also draw blood for a few privately. It’s a bit of a non-issue I feel given that?
Superdrug branches are extremely unevenly spread - many would find the nearest one over 100 miles away. And there are none at all in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
I blame the doctors for all this. If we weren’t forced down the route of having to get our own bloods done this wouldn’t be an issue. I use medichecks and they often have discount codes. They currently have one for 20% off all tests. Their service is very good. We are forced into taking our health into our own hands, something that angers me enormously. There may well be companies out there that take advantage of this but it gives me peace of mind knowing I can take charge of my own health and I can decide what blood tests I can have done without having to go through an arrogant patronising doctor to arrange blood tests
I'd be curious to know if patients with other long term conditions, ie diabetes, heart disease, kidney problems are being forced into buying private blood kits because their GP only tests one parameter.
We know that with thyroid its often only TSH or if you are lucky FT4. I've been testing less often this past 6 months. I prefer to go on symptoms. It annoys me that we are denied a full test and I dont particularly want to keep shelling out £30 for a basic thyroid panel.
I think we all want something to change with respect to testing.
Part of me would like to see NHS phlebotomists and labs offering tests for reasonable charges. Thus making it easier for most of us to access proper phlebotomy, and get results from bona fide NHS labs - likely the same ones that do our GP tests. With results (optionally) automatically going into our NHS records. And labs gaining both extra turnover and some "profit" to be used to keep them going, buy new equipment, etc.
But the other side is that I can imagine a future in which we would all have to pay at the time for even our standard NHS tests. Or for additional tests (e.g. adding Free T3).
Can anyone see somewhere between the two that might be feasible?
i'd be happy enough with something like NHS dentistry(and opticians) use , ie basic banding charges for different things , with a system for exemption certificates based on low income /receipt of certain benefits to cover those who really can't afford to pay anything.
Oh gosh. I’d hate that. There are too many people eligible for benefits who are too vulnerable to either seek them or advocate for themselves to get them from a system designed to not help them get benefits.
benefit receipt is not needed, NHS already have a low income scheme, can't remember the exact details, basically it just needs proof of income below x , outgoings over x , and no savings/ capitol over x
Honestly TB at different points in my life when I have needed such schemes, I didn’t think they were very fair and too often found to be ineligible due to computer says no, even if I rightly should have been.
I strongly believe the tests should be available across the whole NHS test as standard, free of charge. And, technically, for many of us, it’s not free as such as we have paid into the tax system.
I feel what we do with the private tests route is pay twice.
Separate note - hope you are getting on well with T3 if started yet x
Would it be possible to design a monitor along the lines of the diabetes one? Then it would be a one off purchase and maybe work better for us.
I realise our hormones don’t change as rapidly as sugar, but to be able to plug in every so often would be great. As long as it was reliable and measured T3!
apparently not (shame, as it would be great if we could).
i gather it's in the 'technically far too difficult at present' box.
~as far as i understand it (not far lol) measuring blood sugar is a relatively simple process compared to the very technical lab processes needed to separate extremely tiny amounts of FreeT4 from the much larger amounts of Total T4 in the blood , (same with Free T3) ,
so to measure Free T4 / Free T3 , first you have to separate out the free hormone ( Total T4 /or T3 includes the bound hormone and free hormone)
I keep coming back to the same place, measuring the actual hormones using a tiny sensor - like glucose - might never be possible.
But that doesn't mean that collecting a raft of other measurements wouldn't identify thyroid hormones being out of kilter. We know electrical, temperature, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, movement, etc., are all possible. Add a few more factors and apply the mightiest intellectual effort to interpretation - and we might get somewhere.
I'd hope that would be sufficient to identify that a thyroid hormone test is needed, even if that has to remain a laboratory blood test.
That would be a step in a better direction wouldn’t it. After having paid over £1000 in the direction of teeth in the last year due to not being able to get an NHS place, I’d have been more than happy to have been on their bands system for that instead!
Same with blood tests, how much have most of us racked up and will continue to do so to get tests that Drs won’t do, including Active b12, iron profiles when insisting our lower ferritin levels are fine (but private iron profiles show otherwise) & elements of thyroid etc. Being on bands as you suggest would as well as save us money, give opportunity for more testing and better health as a result. No, not as good as free, but much better than present! Plus the money would be going back into the NHS at least.
I really wanted to find MMH a good option due to that reason and their reasonable price, but had bad experience, over a month before I got results, very poor customer service waiting days between emails and never did receive some results so am wary at retrying, though guess I should give it another chance!
i've used MMH 3 times this year, 2 TSH/ fT4/ fT3 only tests and 1 larger bunch with 2 vials , i've only had one problem which was my fault ( i wrote wrong date on sample causing them to think it was too old) ,,,this was quickly and efficiently dealt with within an hour or so by email, sample was then tested. So far everything has been fine ... i was a bit dubious at first as around January i knew a few people on here were having issues with( allegedly) post office not delivering it to lab in time., but i haven't encountered any problems with them as yet.
I think the only solution has to be rooted in patient care not profit. What is seems reasonable is not by another. The tests should be available for free as standard from the NHS. Indeed this is the case in many regions already.
Only then can we hope GPs are out in a position to actually interpret tests and work with us, the patients.
And if GPS aren't in the position to.interpret the tests we need somewhere in each area we have better and quicker access to someone who can!Take ferritin for instance. Know many of us aren't even told if it's low or just advised there's nothing to worry about whilst we're dragging around, hearts pounding, anxious & gasping for breath. Mines been as low as 11 at times, without acknowledgement & if u are told I've never been offered a test few months on to recheck.
Yet at level of 50, private iron profiles have shown I've a great need for iron, even on explaining this to Drs they still refuse to do an iron panel to help. But surely a test like that would help them more as well as us, as it would show clearly the need and whether safe to take iron?
92p it cost the hospital to do ft3 blood test..so certainly not down to cost why they don't do as standard. It's downright criminal and negligence as we all know more people who are suffering would have to be diagnosed or people on T4 already would need to be prescribed T3 alsoThanks for your link Jim
Bare in mind that 92p multiplied across the millions of thyroid tests done by the NHS adds up to quite a substantial amount. But that doesn't change the fact that we absolutely do need, and should have a right to this test.
Milkyway88, If you wanted a DIY female (or male) hormone test, you can choose a new device called a Tasso, that takes the blood out of capillaries in your arm. Much easier than stabbing fingers and dripping blood everywhere! Unfortunately this option is only available with the sex hormone test kits.
Blue Horizon are only in this for profit. Having been ripped off when a sample was damaged in transit and never received a repeat test, nor did I receive a refund, I wouldn't use them again. Very expensive too. I keep unsubscribing from their hit list, but they just add me again. I wish they would get lost!!
That's terrible. It would be cheaper to literally fly to Poland to do a test privately here and go back on a plane , no joke. I pay 15 pounds for ft3 ft4, there is no appointment necessary and my results are back within a few hours. When I lived in Ireland, prices were also astronomical!
mmmm just checked Randox out as I am all for saving money. £29 for all that to be done including antibodies? Alas I believe you get what you pay for and to me that's far too cheap. I checked them out on Trustpilot as regards their home kits only to discover a few people saying pretty much the same thing ie. prnt.sc/QAnEW-1iLYwP
I think this issue will be regarding finger prick tests for sex hormones when the person is already on oestrogen or testosterone. Residue of E and T on skin gives massive false reading, I know it happened to me. I think finger prick for thyroid is OK with them.I still prefer medichecks with their dashboard, indepth information and easy graphs of your results over the years
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