{"id":1097644,"date":"2026-07-18T22:34:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T22:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1097644\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T22:34:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T22:34:23","slug":"i-flew-to-lithuania-for-op-as-nhs-delays-left-me-feeling-like-i-had-glass-in-my-hip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1097644\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I flew to Lithuania for op as NHS delays left me feeling like I had glass in my hip\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

EXCLUSIVE: NHS waiting list for operation left Nicky Hatton housebound as 59-year-old was told to \u2018use a walking stick\u2019 and wait over a year\"Nicky<\/p>\n

Nicky Hatton was left in agony unable to walk(Image: Nicky Hatton)<\/p>\n

A woman has told how she flew to Lithuania for a hip replacement because long NHS<\/a> waiting lists left her enduring pain \u201clike having broken glass in my hip\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nicky Hatton, 59, had osteoarthritis for three years before becoming unable to walk last September when an X-ray confirmed her hip was \u201cbone on bone\u201d. After being told to use a walking stick and waiting another four months she says she was then told it would be at least another year before she got the operation on the NHS.<\/p>\n

The mother-of-two has told how she felt no option other than pay to get it done abroad as data shows a surge in Brits travelling overseas for medical treatment.<\/p>\n

\"Nicola<\/p>\n

Nicola on holiday last year when she says she was unable to walk anywhere(Image: Nicky Hatton)<\/p>\n

X-rays last September confirmed that Nicky\u2019s hip was \u201cbone on bone\u201d when her GP put her forward for a replacement.<\/p>\n

Nicky, from Chatteris, Cambs, said: \u201cIt was like somebody had put broken glass in my hip, that’s how it felt. I mean, I’ve had twins and I know how painful that was, and it was up there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was swallowing co-codamol like, as soon as I was allowed another one, I was having another one. I got to the point where I wasn’t walking anywhere\u2026 I just piled on the weight. It just really got me down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nicky\"<\/p>\n

Nick using her walking stick last Christmas<\/p>\n

It comes as data out last week showed the NHS elective waiting list is on the rise again, standing at 7.3 million appointments in England.<\/p>\n

Nicky, a support officer for a homeless charity, had waited four months in agony when she had a home visit for a pain relieving injection and was told although she was on the waiting list she would likely not get the procedure for 12 to 18 months.<\/p>\n

At this point she started looking at how much it would cost at a private hospital and was told between \u00a320,000 and \u00a325,000 in the UK. However she found a clinic called Nord Orthopaedics through a Facebook<\/a> group which was offering to do it for \u00a38,600.<\/p>\n

\"Nicky\"<\/p>\n

Nicky on holiday where she struggled to walk anywhere(Image: Nicky Hatton)<\/p>\n

Nicky, who is also a full time carer for her disabled adult son, travelled to Lithuania second largest city of Kaunas in April this year to get her new hip – and says she hasn\u2019t looked back.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt’s a million times different. It’s like night and day. I get up in the morning, I’m up and down the stairs and I\u2019m only 13 weeks out from the op. It really affected my mood. And I don’t think I realised until after the op, how much it had affected my mood.\u201d<\/p>\n

After some success cutting the NHS waiting list in England over the last two years, new data released this week suggested progress may have stalled. The waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England rose for the second month in a row to levels last seen in December.<\/p>\n

Officials said the data shows that heatwaves are \u201cnow putting the NHS under just as much pressure as winter”.<\/p>\n

Some 7.28 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of May, relating to 6.16 million patients. This was up from 7.22 million treatments and 6.11 million patients at the end of April.<\/p>\n

Latest analysis by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated 523,000 UK residents travelled overseas for healthcare in 2024, up from 431,000 in 2023 and 348,000 in 2022.<\/p>\n

Separate data also shows private health hospital admissions in the UK hit a record high for the fourth year in a row in 2025. Some 953,000 Brits paid for care according to the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN), mandated by the government to monitor the private sector.<\/p>\n

Nicky said: \u201cThere are not enough doctors, not enough nurses, not enough money going into NHS hospitals<\/a>. They can’t possibly facilitate all of the care to all of the people that need it because there’s no infrastructure to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

PHIN data showed that much of the increase in people getting private healthcare in the UK is coming from an increase in employer-funded private medical insurance (PMI).<\/p>\n

There was a total of 953,000 private admissions in 2025, up by 6,000 on 2024. Such private admissions stood at 777,000 in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic. Latest data showed insured admissions made up 670,000 of private admissions in 2025 which was an increase of 5,000 on the previous year.<\/p>\n

When contacted, the government pointed to NHS England data showing that for trauma and orthopaedics – which includes hip replacements – the NHS saw patients within 18 weeks 60% of the time. This is up 4% since the start of July 2024. when Labour came to power.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: \u201cNobody should be forced to go private or travel overseas for healthcare. We\u2019ve cut the overall waiting list by 340,000 since July 2024, and more people are getting hip replacements and similar treatments within 18 weeks of being referred.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know there is more work to do, but through record funding and harnessing the latest technology<\/a>, we will make sure people get safe, timely care, free at the point of use.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: NHS waiting list for operation left Nicky Hatton housebound as 59-year-old was told to \u2018use a walking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1097645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[11],"tags":[105,2461,299648,6332,2207,211,15165,3896,27779,16,15],"class_list":["post-1097644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-heatwave","tag-hip-replacements","tag-homelessness","tag-hospitals","tag-nhs","tag-office-for-national-statistics","tag-osteoarthritis","tag-twins","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1097644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1097645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1097644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1097644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1097644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}