Can you recommend an allergy clinic in London?

[soursusan]

My ds is 5 and allergic to dairy, eggs, nuts, fish and legumes. At the moment we are seeing a consultant with an interest in allergies at the PRU in Farnborough (our nearest hospital). But I don't don't have 100% confidence in him, and the allergy clinic is small. Because of ds's multiple allergies I would like him to see an allergy specialist - I'm presuming there will be some good ones in London. Can anyone recommend a particular hospital/consultant???
Thanks.

Dr Gideon Lack at St Thomas's Paediatric Allergy Clinic. He is wonderful, as is the whole team there.

He also does private work I believe, the wait to see him can be a number of months but it's worth it if you don't have private medical care (we didn't).

Thanks I was thinking about St Thomas's as I have been to an allergy conference there. Did you get a referral from your GP?

Yes it was a referral from GP - we're in Lambeth and DD was born at St T's so it wasn't that we chose Dr Lack and then asked to be referred to him IYSWIM, more that St T's was the default choice - but as soon as the appointment letter came through I googled Dr Lack and was delighted to find he's one of the best...

He takes referrals from all over the country so it should be easy enough to organise - particularly as your DS has a number of allergies and is past the age at which many children outgrow early allergies such as dairy and egg.

Good luck, hope you manage to get it sorted.

Thanks for your help.

Also a brilliant paediatric allergy clinic at Kings College Hospital - Dr Sue Leech - I know the nurse specialist there and she's brilliant. Good luck x

I second Gideon Lack - we see him at the POrtland but have private health insurance (but even then you have to play the system a certain way to make sure they pay out).

Ours wouldn't pay out turnip - they said that because DD had presented with 'dry skin' at her 8 week check, that she wouldn't be covered for anything eczema or allergy related. I was beyond shocked. Appalling really. How did you get yours to cough up?

Went to see GP today, and he is referring us to St Thomas's but it could take up to 6 weeks for a response! We do have private health insurance (with dh's work)but would prefer to go down the nhs route, as this will be a long term thing.

Crazy all depends on the terms of your policy - ours is a large group policy - so preexisting conditions not excluded (as normally is on individual policies). BUT in saying that they normally allow only ONE or TWO apptments for an allergy related thing - not the ongoing care. On the advice of certain medical people, when I ring up for clearance for a new problem I errr....lieexpand slightly and suggest the referral is for a new allergy rather than existing.

Basically, the NHS provision for allergies is so underresourced I would far rather DD saw them privately if we can, than take an appointment from someone who has no other options (not aimed at OP at all). All depends on policy and clearly quite dodgy not to be telling whole truth to insurers. We do however have to pay for a certain amount of Gideon's fee as insuerers have a cap and he exceeds that. We will have to go NHS at a certain point and that will be fine.

george du Toit is lovely also. I chatted to him after the Allergy charity workshop there in Nov and he told me (for free ) what to do about my baby (youngest of 3) who had been on a dairy free diet because of my eldests medical history. Saved us a trip to Prof Lack.

Best of luck sour. That's a hearty list of allergies - hope you have some luck in reducing etc.

Another vote here for the St Thomas's team. Our insurance (Pru Health) covered most of the costs. Also, push your insurers. Ours refused to cover a particular test (not allergy related) for DS but agreed when we got the consultant involved and escalated it.

We were also at the PRU and ended up going private..We see Dr Adam Fox. He is mine and my daughters guardian angel!! We see him at Viveka or at Harley Street but think he is at St Thomas' as well...

I'm a big fan of Dr Rotiroti at the Greys Inn Road / Royal Free hospitals - she's done a great job for us and took over from Dr Scadding. Seen privately and on NHS - my NHS referral came through quicker!

I dont know why my message was deleted - only offering to help in answering questions :-)