http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/InsureYourHealth/TravelingAfarToCutSurgeryCosts.aspx
This is an article on the emerging field of "medical tourism", which is when you go to some country other than your own in order to receive medical treatment. It has some recommendations for agencies to use that broker all of the planning for your trip and procedure, and it also has a link to a national organization that accredits hospitals and doctors in other countries; in short, it says that these facilities and doctors are as good as any in the U.S. Given that IBS requires a lot of testing, going overseas may be the only way to afford tests and/or treatments for people without health insurance. There's also the fact that there's a doctor shortage in all fields in the U.S., so you may can go to another country and come back before you could even see a GI in the U.S. (much less in the UK, which seems to have even worse waiting periods). And you may just find that a foreign doctor has different ideas on how to treat IBS; after all, bowel complaints, especially D, are a lot more common in a country like India or China than in the U.S. At the very least, I think you would be taken more seriously.