Medication for non Brit visitor?

[glasshole]

Shamelessly posting for traffic as it's quite urgent.

My young adult child has a friend that's just come to visit from America for a month, after losing her only relative in a car accident a few months ago. I've just found out that the young woman's suitcases have been lost AND she didn't take out travel insurance. She can replace the clothes easily, and share my daughters, but Her medication was in the suitcase. Obviously we know she can't use the NHS system and she ABSOLUTELY can fund seeing a private gp and getting a prescription out of her own pocket but how do we do this? How are prescriptions charged for non NHS patients? Is it any gp? Private? Doesn't help that one of the drugs is for a quite serious kidney condition and a hormonal issue, she had just 1-2 days left.

Does anybody have any practical suggestions on this as I'm really out of my comfort zone on this, I haven't got the faintest. But obviously I don't want this young lady to get sick.

Actually she can. Primary care is open to all, she just needs to register as a temporary resident at your NHS GP surgery and explain the situation and they will try to help (depending on what medication it is).

In my experience you can ring 111, explain you need an urgent prescription and they can usually issue it. If not she might have to book an urgent online appointment with one of those online doctor and get one that way.

Call 111 and ask for advice

If needed most GPs will see you and charge a private fee - call your GP and they will advise
depends on where you live there maybe private GPs that would see you on the day

Do as suggested, she will get medication. Also chase up whoever lost the luggage and make sure that they have a UK address etc because it may be found. You don't need insurance for compensation.

Thanks everybody, I didn't intervene with the booking of the trip etc as I assumed they knew to have insurance etc. she's here for a few months so will defo ring the gp in the morning! Thank you so much.

It's impossible to get an appointment quickly at my local GP. If she can afford it I would look for the nearest private GP and call to explain the situation to get an emergency prescription asap especially if it's medication that might need to be ordered in by a pharmacy. In the future she needs to keep medication on her with a copy of the prescription when travelling. If she can get an emailed copy of her medical record/prescription from the US that might help hasten everything here with the GP.

Online or private gp and private prescription at any pharmacy

And this is why I always carry any prescription medication with me. I've travelled with 3 month prescription medication for me, Ds1 (x3) and DS2 (x2) last summer with no problem at the airport, although I did take the paper prescriptions with us just in case.

Not helpful now, but do tell her and your DC that in the future keep irreplaceable things with you when travelling.

As someone pointed out above, everyone, including foreigners and non residents is entitled to GP care, and NHS GPs are not allowed to charge a fee. Hospital care is different and will be charged for.

Just in case anyone doesn’t know. (Surprised me too…)

Tell her to Google private GPs. She’ll probably get a same-day appointment with no real effort.

DocTap are more reasonably priced than a lot of the independent ones and they’re pretty good. Or she can do an online service but depending on her meds, this might not work so well. The one I have through work can’t prescribe a lot of things.

You said yourself she can use a private GP, what’s confusing you? Surely she googles a private GP, makes an appt. Job done. What’s the problem?