Sorry, we are unable to arrange transport on your behalf.

If you think you may be eligible for transport to your hospital outpatient appointment, you should contact the Transport Department of the Hospital that you will be attending. This needs to be done by the patient, or their nominated representative, and cannot be done by the GP Practice.

You may also be able to claim for the cost of arranging your own transport to Hospital.

More information is available on the NHS website.

The best way to book appointments is online via our website.

However you choose to access us, we will take you through a short list of triage questions. These help us to work out whether you can be seen digitally, or need to be seen in person, how urgent your need is, and which of our team of experienced clinicians would be best to help you.

If you are running late for your appointment, you can cancel and rebook by following the link in the confirmation email you will have received at the time of booking. Please make every effort to attend your appointment, or cancel it if you are unable to attend, as this helps us to give the slot to somebody else and avoid wasting appointments.

If you are unable to take our Clinician’s call at the time of your digital appointment, they will try again in a few minutes. If you are again unavailable, you will need to rebook your appointment for another time as the Clinician will have moved on to other patients.

If you arrive more than 5 minutes late for your in-person appointment, your Clinician may not be able to see you. We will try to find you an alternative appointment time the same day, but you will need to rebook if we are unable to find one.

Our clinicians try as hard as they can to run to time. However, sometimes they may be a little late to your appointment if they are held up with an earlier patient or urgent problem. Thank you for your patience. Your clinician will call you as soon as they are able to.

GP at Hand is an NHS GP service. To receive NHS care, you must be located in England. We will be unable to consult with you, issue any prescriptions, or make any referrals if you are not currently located in the UK.

If you are travelling abroad for a short period, we may be able to issue up to three months of your regular medication before you go. This will depend upon which medication you take, what monitoring is required, and will be up to the discretion of your Clinician. Please ensure you discuss this with your Clinician in plenty of time.

If you are resident outside England for more than six months, you will usually no longer be entitled to NHS care, and will be removed from our list. You can apply to re-register with us once you move back to England, if you live or work within 40 minutes travel time of one of our clinics at that time.

If you are travelling, you may be able to get help for paying for healthcare costs while you’re travelling abroad.

The NHS website has detailed information on this, and other aspects of travelling or moving abroad.

Gaining access to another person’s medical record through the NHS App is called ‘Proxy Access’.

You can ask us to set up Proxy Access by sending us a message.

Adults who have parental responsibility for a child can ask to have access to their child’s record if the child is aged under 13 years old. We may need to see evidence of parental responsibility. This access will stop on the child’s 13th birthday.

For children aged 13 to 15, a Clinician will need to discuss this request with both you and your child.

For those aged 16 and over, Proxy Access will require the consent of the person whose record you are wishing to access. A Clinician may need to discuss this request with you both.

If you need to update your contact details, the easiest way is to do this via the NHS App.

You can also update your personal details online via our online consultation system. Simply select “Admin request” and then “Change personal details”.

You can self-certify for the first 7 days of any period of illness. This means that you do not need to give your employer a fit note or other proof of sickness if you are off work for less that 7 days (note that this period includes weekends and other non-working days).

If you are off work for longer than this, you will need a Fit Note from your GP. You can use our online consultation service to request this, and we will contact you if we need to speak to you further about your request.

Your prescriptions will be sent to your nominated pharmacy.

You can change your nominated pharmacy in the NHS App, or by letting your Clinician know in your appointment.

If you wish to collect a prescription from a different pharmacy as a one-off, perhaps because your medication is not in stock at your usual pharmacy, you should ask the pharmacy to send your prescription back to the NHS spine and to give you the prescription barcode. 

You can then take the barcode to any pharmacy in England that you would like your prescription dispensed from. If you do not have the barcode but the pharmacy have confirmed they have sent the prescription back to the NHS spine, the new pharmacy will still able to find your prescription (you may be asked to confirm your full name, date of birth and address).

A shared care agreement (or SCA) is a written agreement between a patient, their general practitioner (GP), and a hospital consultant that allows for the sharing of care for a specific health condition. The agreement details the responsibilities of each party, including who is responsible for prescribing, monitoring, and early referrals.

A shared care agreement is usually made when a patient’s condition is stable or predictable, and with the patient’s agreement. The agreement allows the patient to continue taking their medicine from their GP, rather than having to visit the hospital.

Shared care agreements are typically developed for specialist drugs or medications that require ongoing monitoring, such as: ADHD medications, Specialist arthritis medications, Specialist skin medications, and Some specialist drugs with known side effects.

Shared care agreements are voluntary for GPs, and they are not required to enter into them.

Due to an increased demand for these requests, we have made the decision to temporarily cease taking over the prescribing of medicines that require a shared care agreement from private organisations. This change is necessary to ensure we can maintain our capacity to provide care to all of our patients. Shared Care Agreements that come from NHS or NHS-funded providers will continue to be accepted where clinically appropriate.

If you are currently receiving prescriptions from a private provider and do not have an agreed shared care arrangement in place with us, you will need to continue obtaining your prescription from your private service provider. Unfortunately, we will not be able to take over these prescriptions at this time.

Please note, that due to regularory concerns and advice from our local commissioners, we are unable to accept any advice or requests from GenderGP.

Your clinician might recommend you to have a medical test to:

• Find out what’s causing your symptoms
• Screen for a specific condition or health problem 
• Check your general health
• Monitor a long-term condition or certain medications 

The process will be different depending on the type of test, but you’ll usually need to visit one of our clinics.

Your test results will be sent back to us and reviewed by one of our clinicians, usually within 1-2 weeks, but it can take longer.

The clinician or hospital who arranges your test will tell you whether there are any specific instructions you need to follow before your test.

Preparing for a test

It’s important to follow the instructions you’re given, as it may affect the result of the test and mean it needs to be delayed or carried out again.

Testing in clinic

Types of tests available at our clinics:

• blood tests
• toenail clippings – collect to do at home
• stool (poo) – collect to do at home 
• urine and wound swabs
• Cervical Screening (smear test) and vaginal swabs

Blood tests

If needed, your clinician will send you an invitation to book a blood test at one of our clinics.

Most blood tests only take a few minutes to complete and will be carried out by one of our phlebotomy trained colleagues.

All other tests

Your clinician may refer you to collect a test kit from one of our clinics to investigate your symptoms further. In most cases, you won’t need an appointment and can collect your test kit from reception.

All our clinics have private facilities on site for you to collect a sample.

If you’d prefer, you can also take your test kit home and drop it back to the clinic before 4:00pm, Monday to Friday* (excluding Bank Holidays).

*Please, note that we do not accept the drop off of samples at our Raynes Park (Wimbledon) clinic.

We don’t have the facility to store samples in the clinics after 4:00pm. If you collect the sample after this time, please drop it off as soon as possible the next morning (samples dropped off after 4:00pm will be discarded).

You can also drop it off at one of the hospital drop off locations shown below.

Hospital drop off locations in London

You can drop your sample to any of our clinics or to one of these hospitals:

• Charing Cross Hospital, Fulham Palace Road, W6 8RF
• Hammersmith Hospital, Du Cane Road, W12 0HS
• St. Mary’s Hospital, Praed Street, W2 1NY

At the hospital, you should ask for directions to the pathology sample reception.

Testing at a hospital

Most tests can be done at one of our clinics. However, a clinician might refer you to a hospital or specialist for some types of tests. For example, scans and X-rays.

You’ll usually need an appointment for these types of tests. Depending on where you have been referred for the test will depend on how you will be contacted to arrange the appointment. Your Clinician will explain more.

Requesting X-rays and images 

In order to obtain copies of your X-rays or other images, you will need to contact the relevant hospital directly. GP at Hand cannot do this on your behalf. 

You do not need to provide photo ID to register with us, in line with NHS regulations.

However, we are required to verify your photo ID before giving access to your NHS record or consulting with you digitally.

Once you have registered, we will contact you and let you know how to verify your ID. If you need an urgent appointment before you have had a chance to do this, please show your photo ID to the Clinician at the start of the video call. You can also call us and ask for an in-person appointment if you prefer. Without verifying your identity, your Clinician will not be able to consult digitally with you.