A Quick Guide to the National Health Service 

In order to be eligible for NHS care, you must be registered with a GP in the area where you live. For those registering here the medical centre should be the first contact for all health problems. Only your GP can visit you at home, refer you to see a NHS or private specialist or arrange investigations e.g. x-rays.

Please do not wait until you are ill before registering with a doctor or obtaining an NHS number.

If you are away from London and need to see a doctor, you can register as a Temporary Resident in the area where you are staying. If you experience or witness a significant medical emergency or accident that will require immediate hospital care you should travel directly to the local hospital casualty department or call an ambulance by dialling 999.

Information for patients from abroad 

The National Health Service is a state funded health care provider in the UK. Anyone resident in the UK for 6 months or more is entitled to receive free health care throughout NHS hospitals and clinics.

If you plan to spend less than 6 months in the United Kingdom, you should establish whether or not your government will pay for your help care whilst you are here. You should establish this fact before you arrive in the United Kingdom. If there is no arrangement between your government and the United Kingdom, you should make appropriate arrangements to cover the possibility of incurring costs through accidents or illness whilst you are in the UK.

If you plan to spend 6 months or more in the United Kingdom you are eligible for care under the NHS. You need to register with a doctor (GP) and obtain an NHS number. Please come to the medical centre for advice on how to register (if you have not already done so) with a general practitioner.

Cost and charges

All NHS primary health care is free at the point of delivery. This means that you do not have to pay to see a doctor or nurse at St Philips Medical Centre. Certain services are not automatically provided by the NHS, for example, private medical certificates for insurance or pre-employment screening. Prescriptions are charged (by the dispensing pharmacist) at a flat fee of £6.00. All contraceptive prescriptions are free. Many groups of people, e.g. children, the elderly, pregnant women, those on low income etc, are entitled to free prescriptions.

Certain charges may apply for medicines for use outside the United Kingdom. A very small number of medicines are not available through the NHS. Some of these medicines are not available at all in the United Kingdom, others may be available, but will require full payment to the dispensing pharmacist.

Eye tests

NHS eye tests are not provided by the medical centre. Instead they are provided by qualified optometrists who are attached to dispensing opticians (see the phone directory or contact the medical centre if you are unsure where the nearest optician is located). There is a standard fee of ca £20.00 when you have your eyes tested (unless you qualify for free prescriptions). The examination is very thorough and you will be given a written report which you can take to any dispensing optician of your choice in order to obtain a pair of spectacles or contact-lenses (in the case that they are needed).

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