What protects you, where it stops, and what happens to your data

Most companies in this market publish a page about how safe treatment abroad is, and leave the practical questions to the small print. This page answers them instead: what happens if an operation needs redoing, who pays when plans change, which protections stop at the border, and the situations in which we would tell you not to go — because those are the things you actually need in order to decide, and because a company that will not write them down is telling you something about itself.

None of it is an argument against treatment in India. It is an argument for going into it with your eyes open. The clinical risks of any operation are a conversation for the surgeon who has seen your case — they must set them out for you, specifically, before you consent, and a generic list here is no substitute for that. What this page covers is everything around that conversation: the money, the law, the records and the journey home.

A joint replacement is not permanent. Implants loosen, wear, and occasionally need attention earlier than planned. When that happens the joint has to be revised — a second, larger operation that is harder than the first and has less predictable results. This is true of every joint replacement performed anywhere in the world, and your surgeon will discuss how likely it is in your case before you consent.

What is different about having the first operation abroad is who does the second one, and who pays for it. A revision performed in the UK will normally fall to the NHS, which will treat you but is under no obligation to prioritise you, and may reasonably take the view that the original surgeon should have the opportunity to put it right. Returning to India for a revision means flying again, at your own cost, at a point when you are already unwell.

Sevanta is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and does not advise on, arrange or sell insurance. What follows is factual information so that you know which questions to ask an authorised broker.

A standard travel policy typically covers you for things that happen to you as a traveller — an accident, an unrelated illness, a cancelled flight. Most standard policies specifically exclude anything arising from planned medical treatment, which is the entire purpose of your trip, and some are void altogether if you did not declare it.

Specialist medical travel policies do exist and can cover complications, extended stays and repatriation. Read the exclusions before the benefits: pre-existing conditions, the definition of complication, any requirement that the treating hospital be accredited, time limits after discharge, and whether the policy pays the hospital directly or reimburses you afterwards.

Your medical records are what UK data protection law calls special category data — the most strongly protected class of personal information there is. Sevanta Health Ltd is the data controller for the information you give us, and we are registering with the Information Commissioner’s Office before we accept a first enquiry.

A first enquiry collects no medical information at all: your name, your contact details and which procedure you are interested in. That is deliberate. We ask for your history and your imaging only when you have decided to go further, and only after you have given separate, explicit, unticked consent that names what we are collecting, why, and the fact that it will be sent to India.

You can withdraw that consent at any time, and you can ask us for a copy of everything we hold, for corrections, or for deletion. We will act within one month. Two honest limits: once an Indian hospital has taken you on as a patient, its clinical record is its own and subject to Indian retention rules — we cannot compel its deletion. And where we are required to keep something to defend a legal claim or to meet a statutory obligation, we will keep it and tell you why.

We keep enquiry records for twelve months from your last contact if you do not proceed, and medical records for eight years after the end of your engagement if you do — the same period the NHS Records Management Code of Practice sets for adult health records. We do not sell data, we do not share it with advertisers, and we run no analytics or non-essential cookies before you consent to them.

Two separate contracts, and quite possibly two separate legal systems. Your agreement with Sevanta for coordination is with a company registered in England and Wales and is governed by the law of England and Wales. Your agreement for treatment is directly with the Indian hospital, and is governed by Indian law and subject to Indian courts.

This distinction is not a technicality. It means a claim about your surgery is an Indian claim, brought in India, under Indian law, against an Indian institution — regardless of the fact that you found the hospital through a British company and paid a British company a fee.