We provide the following services at Adelaide Medical Centre. If you unsure what type of appointment you need, please ask our reception and admin staff who can help you book the right appointment.

Nurse Clinics

Our nurses can see patients for the following:

• Family planning
• Childhood immunisations
• Travel advice and vaccinations 
• NHS health checks
• Health promotion (screening and advice about diet, exercise and alcohol)
• Smoking cessation 
• Minor injuries 
• Dressings
• Removal of sutures
• Contraceptive and other medication injections
• Cervical smears (cervical cancer screening for patients aged between 25 and 64 years of age. A call and recall system is operated to remind you when your test is due)

Please visit the NHS website's vaccination page for information about which vaccines are due at which age, and the University of Oxford's Vaccine Knowledge Project for reliable, up to date information about vaccines.

Our nursing team is also integral to the management of long-term medical conditions, and provides the following appointments:

• Asthma and COPD reviews
• Blood pressure checks 
• Diabetes reviews

Blood tests

The majority of our patients should get their blood tests done at the Royal Free Hospital. This requires an appointment:

• To book a blood test at the Royal Free Hospital, please visit: https://www.swiftqueue.co.uk/pre_timescreen.php?id=10562 or call 020 7443 9757 (lines open Mon-Fri 8am -5pm).

We can also book blood tests at University College Hospital (UCLH). This also requires an appointment to be booked in advance:

• To book at ULCH, please use the UCLH app or go to: https://mycare.uclh.nhs.uk/mycare/openscheduling

Please note that these two hospitals have different IT and pathology systems: if our clinician has requested a blood test, it can only be done at the  specific hospital where we have requested it. Please inform your clinician if you have a preference (our usual default is the Royal Free Hospital), and ensure you attend the correct hospital.

We provide some blood tests here at the surgery, however capacity for these is limited and assessed on a case by case basis. Priority is typically given to those who might find it difficult to attend the hospital for a blood test, such as those who are frail or physically disabled. 

Travel clinics

Please ensure you book these appointments in advance, ideally at least 8 weeks before your trip. Early booking is especially important during the summer, when demand surges. Ideally, vaccinations should be completed at least one month before travel, but can be given up to six months prior.

The NHS website provides up-to-date travel vaccination advice. Please also see Travel Health Pro for recommended vaccines for your destination and tips on staying healthy abroad. 

The following travel vaccines are available free on the NHS at Adelaide Medical Centre: tetanus (given as a combined diphtheria/tetanus/polio jab), typhoid, hepatitis A and cholera.

The following travel vaccines are not freely available on the NHS and would need to be sourced and paid for privately: hepatitis B, Japanese encephalitis, meningitis, rabies, tick-born encephalitis, tuberculosis (TB) and yellow fever.

Health advice whilst travelling

If you become ill while abroad, you must seek treatment from a local medical professional. Your NHS GP is not obligated to treat any new issues that arise while you are out of the country. For this reason, all patients are advised to get comprehensive travel insurance to avoid incurring unexpected additional costs should this situation arise.

Please see here for more information about obtaining and using a GHIC or EHIC card for medical care abroad.

If you are considering going abroad solely for the purposes of having medical treatment, please see here.

Please see our prescriptions page for advice on obtaining medications prior to travel.

Consulting with patients abroad

NHS GPs generally cannot consult with patients who are abroad at the time, primarily due to legal, regulatory and patient safety concerns. 

• Legal and jurisdictional issues: a GP's professional indemnity insurance, which protects them from claims of negligence, typically only covers them for practice within the UK. Consulting with a patient in a different country would expose the GP to the laws and regulations of that country, for which they are not insured
• Medical registration: doctors are typically only licensed to practice medicine in the country where they are registered. Consulting with a patient in another country could be considered practicing medicine without a license in that jurisdiction
• Patient safety: while there are many benefits to remote consultations via phone or video, there are also significant limitations which are particularly relevant when a patient is abroad. A GP cannot perform a physical examination or order blood tests or other diagnostic procedures, which are often necessary to properly assess a new or worsening medical condition. Misdiagnosing a condition remotely could be dangerous for the patient
• Prescribing issues: prescribing regulations and infrastructure vary enormously between countries. Prescribing medication without full understanding of the local environment in which it will be dispensed can be complex and potentially unsafe. GPs cannot always be certain if a prescribed medication is even legal or available in other countries
• The GP cannot continue to monitor the patient's condition or arrange for prompt follow-up care.

Cryotherapy

Our advanced physician assistants can provide some cryotherapy (liquid nitrogren) treatments, including for warts, verrucae and certain skin lesions. Our clinicians can advise you if your condition is suitable for this treatment here.

Antenatal and postnatal care

Our doctors provide antenatal care during regular clinical appointments.

We also have baby clinics, typically once per week, where we provide 6-week postnatal checks for mothers and babies.

Care homes

Adelaide Medical Centre provides GP care to Rathmore House and Compton Lodge care homes. Our clinicians typically visit once per week on a routine basis, in addition to providing remote support and urgent visits as needed at other times.

Long-term conditions MDT

We have a weekly in-practice multidisciplinary team (MDT) meeting to review the management of our patients with long-term conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, asthma and chronic kidney disease. These involve a GP, senior nurse and member of administrative staff, who proactively review patients' medical notes to ensure they are receiving the best evidence-based treatments for their conditions, and to arrange any outstanding investigations or follow-up appointments we feel are needed. Due to the large volume of patients reviewed, we cannot routinely invite patients to partake in these meetings, but we always try to keep you updated of any changes, such as by sending you a care plan or relevant messages. Patients are always welcome to book an appointment if they would like to discuss any of these issues further.