How much does a private GP cost in the UK?
Those two numbers describe different products, which is why most price comparisons are useless. One buys you a doctor for fifteen minutes. The other buys you a doctor for a decade. My own practice sits in the second group, and the Assessment that starts it is £995 for one person and £1,495 for a couple.
What a private GP appointment costs in 2026
These are the going rates across the UK. London sits at the top of every range, and everywhere else comes in cheaper.
- Online or telephone consultation: £25 to £75
- In-person appointment, 15 minutes: £60 to £120
- Extended appointment, 30 minutes: £120 to £200
- Home visit: £250 to £500
- App-based subscription: £20 to £80 a month, with appointments charged on top
Blood tests, scans, prescriptions and referral letters sit outside all of those figures. A consultation fee buys you the consultation.
The transactional market
This is what most people picture. You have a problem, you book, you pay, you leave. What you're buying is availability, which is a doctor sooner than the NHS can offer one. For a one-off illness that is decent value and the right thing to buy.
What it does not do is watch you. The doctor you see may not be the one you saw last time, and nobody is holding the thread of your health between visits, because nobody is being paid to.
The managed market
The second market prices by the year, because it sells continuity rather than access. You start with a full assessment. Everything gets measured, examined, and written up into a strategy. Then the practice books your reviews, reads your results against your last set rather than against a reference range, and contacts you when something moves.
My own practice sits here, with one membership rather than a ladder of tiers, and the money works differently from most. You pay me for my time and my judgment. Every test, scan and referral is arranged at cost, with no markup, and I show you what it cost. The current rate and the household rates are set out in full on the membership page.
Those are not appointment prices with a zero added. They buy a different thing.
Why the annual number looks high and often isn't
Set the two side by side. Eight private appointments a year at £120 comes to £960, and at the end of it nobody has examined you properly, nobody has a baseline, and nobody knows whether your blood pressure has been climbing for three years. You have bought eight solutions to eight separate problems.
The annual fee buys the assessment, the reviews, the interpretation, and the person who notices. The value sits in what gets caught early, which is exactly the thing you cannot see on an invoice. That is uncomfortable, because it means you are paying for something that has not gone wrong yet. It is also the entire point.
What sits on top of the headline price
Laboratory fees, imaging, consultant fees, vaccine stock and drug costs are charged separately in both markets. Ask any practice whether they pass those through at cost or add a margin. In my practice they pass through at cost, evidenced on request, because I'm paid for clinical judgment rather than for marking up other people's invoices.
Private prescriptions are charged at the full price of the medicine, rather than the NHS flat charge. For a short course of antibiotics the gap is small. For something you will take for twenty years, work it out before you start.
What to ask before you pay anyone
Ask whether you see the same doctor every time. Ask who books your reviews, you or them, because a practice that waits for you to call has sold you access rather than management. Ask what happens to a result that is normal today but heading the wrong way. Ask what is excluded, in writing, and be suspicious of any practice that cannot answer that in one page.
Then ask yourself which problem you are actually solving. If you want a doctor when you are ill, the transactional market is the right market and the cheaper one. If you want somebody to hold your health across a decade, an appointment price will never buy that, at any number of appointments.
Common questions about private GP costs
How much does a private GP cost in the UK?
Between £25 and £500 for a single appointment, depending on how you see the doctor and for how long. Online consultations start at £25, a standard in-person appointment is £60 to £120, and a home visit is £250 to £500. Annual managed care, where one doctor assesses you and monitors you across the year, is priced separately at £3,000 to £15,000.
How much is a private GP appointment?
A fifteen-minute in-person appointment is usually £60 to £120. Thirty minutes is £120 to £200. Video and telephone appointments are cheaper, from £25 to £75, because the doctor never leaves the building and cannot examine you.
How much does a private GP home visit cost?
£250 to £500 across most of the country, higher in central London and higher again outside working hours. It costs more because it takes a doctor out of a clinic for an hour or more once you count the travel.
Can you just pay to see a private GP?
Yes. You don't need insurance, you don't need a referral, and you don't leave your NHS practice to do it. You stay registered with your NHS GP, and anything that belongs in the NHS system goes back there.
Do you need a referral to see a private GP?
No. A private GP is the first door rather than the second. You do need a referral to see a private consultant, and a private GP can write you one.
Are private prescriptions more expensive than NHS ones?
Usually. On the NHS you pay a flat charge per item, or nothing at all if you're exempt. Privately you pay what the medicine actually costs plus the pharmacy's fee, which is cheaper for some generics and considerably more for anything branded or taken long term.