FairWait
About FairWait
FairWait is a free, independent health-information website. It explains how healthcare works in 83 countries and compares what treatments cost and how long people wait for them, in public health systems and privately.
- What it is
- Health and medical information: a reference and comparison site for patients, families and travellers
- Topic
- Healthcare systems, hospital waiting times, treatment and dental costs, health insurance for travel
- Audience
- General public, all ages. No adult, gambling or other restricted content
- Cost
- Free to use, no sign-up needed. No adverts
- Sells
- Nothing — no medicines, no treatments, no appointments, no insurance
- Language
- English (UK)
- Contact
- privacy@fairwait.uk
What you can do here
- Look up a country — how residents get care, the official waiting-time source, typical private costs, prescription charges, dental and the emergency number. Example: the United Kingdom.
- Compare a procedure — the public waiting time and private price of, say, a hip replacement or an MRI scan, side by side across countries.
- Find a specialist — the official register to check a doctor or dentist is qualified, and the main hospitals for that specialty.
- Travel safely — what a visitor is entitled to, whether an EHIC/GHIC works, and what to do if you need a doctor abroad.
- Keep your own records — an optional private log of appointments, costs and prescriptions, stored in your own browser.
What FairWait is not
- Not a medical service. It gives no diagnosis, treatment or medication advice and has no doctors. In an emergency, call your local emergency number (999 or 112 in the UK, 112 across the EU, 911 in North America).
- Not a pharmacy, clinic, booking service or insurer. It links to official sources and well-known providers, but doesn't sell or book anything.
- Not a real-time queue. Waiting times are published statistics or typical averages, never anyone's personal place in a queue.
Where the information comes from
Waiting times come from each country's own official statistics where they are published openly — currently NHS England's Referral to Treatment statistics (including figures for each NHS Trust), Ireland's National Treatment Purchase Fund and Poland's National Health Fund (NFZ). These are marked Official, with the date and a link to the source. Everywhere else, figures are clearly labelled typical averages and shown next to the official source so you can check the current number. Country guides are researched from government and health-service websites and list their sources.
Privacy
No advertising or tracking cookies. The personal tracker stays in your browser unless you choose otherwise. Page visits are counted per page and per day with nothing that identifies you. Details in the Privacy Policy.
For developers and AI tools
The data is open to read: see llms.txt, the JSON data files, or connect an MCP client to https://www.fairwait.uk/mcp.