Do you live in London and think you have a UTI? Would you like to try a fast-tracked test & treat service? Sign up here to try the Dip UTI smartphone-powered test

[JustineBMumsnet]

Dip UTI has asked us to find Mumsnet users in London who currently suspect they have a UTI to try out their home testing kits and report back on Mumsnet. We’re also looking for a handful of users who would be willing to take part in a video interview about their experience following the testing period.

Here’s what Dip UTI has to say: “Dip UTI allows you to test for a UTI with your smartphone, receive clinical-grade results in minutes and access prescription-only medication at the pharmacy, without seeing a GP, if your results and symptoms indicate a UTI."

Please note we’re selecting testers who currently suspect they have a UTI and we’re aware that if signing up you’ll be looking for treatment ASAP, so we’ll be checking in on sign ups daily (Monday to Friday) so that a kit can be delivered to you quickly if you’re selected. We’ll be selecting up to 3 testers per day,

If you’re selected, you’ll be sent a Dip UTI home testing kit and a £15 Boots voucher, which you can use to purchase medication to treat your UTI should you need to.

If you’re interested in taking part, please sign up here.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Insight Terms and Conditions apply

At our surgery we have a protocol for dealing with UTIs. If you suspect you have one you bring the sample to reception and fill out a symptoms form. We label them and the samples are dip tested at lunch time. If the sample shows infection and symptoms from the patients sheet the doctor will prescribe antibiotics. If the patient has had recurrent uti's sometimes the doctor will wait for the results to come back. If the patient comes in the afternoon we will still arrange a test but its advised they come back the next day for lab testing. There is a chance that the infection you have may be resistant to standard antibiotics such as nitrofurantion. I think it's very rigorous and I'm glad we have it but patients still moan about it. You can't please everyone. Oh and off course it's free.

@welliesarefuntowear
What do you do if the (notoriously unreliable) test shows no infection in the presence of symptoms? Does the patient just have to suffer?

Well I'm lucky enough to both live in London AND think I have a UTI.
I applied yesterday - the kit arrived by courier today. Fear not - no need to pee on your smartphone. You download the app and it takes you through the whole process, which basically involves collecting urine in a pot, putting a dipstick into it and then letting the camera on your phone scan the dipstick. The results are in within 60 seconds. Mine were negative. If they are not then you are directed towards your nearest pharmacy.
My next available GP appointment was in 10 days time, so this works for me.

@Member877745 getting it the day after you need it isn't good enough if you're suffering. UTis can very quickly become nasty. The practice nurse at our surgery will see you the same day if you think you have a waterworks infection. I would rather do that and it's also free

Including antibiotics the whole thing costs around £25

@AnnaMariaDreams well we would advise them to see the GP of course . The protocol we have is especially useful for those people who can't wait to see the GP or if the person is housebound and a carer might bring in the sample. Nobody is left to suffer. Why would that be the assumption?

Because a lot of women are left to suffer with regard to urinary tract infections. The standard 3 day courses cause a lot of problems as well.

www.chronicutiinfo.com/intro-key-info/a-picture-guide-to-the-evolution-of-a-chronic-uti/

Glad your GP practice is better than that, many aren’t.

@AnnaMariaDreams quite often the test will not be reliable this is true. Children who have uti's have to have a GP appointment. I just wouldn't want anyone to think that they have to have this test in order to get treated effectively and efficiently as the cost is prohibitive. Not all GP practices are like ours of course, So I guess it's hit and miss as to how utiis are treated, I'm not sure this is the answer though especially if the patient keeps getting them. Would Boots make sure that it is recommended that the patient seeks further advice?

Randomly i am in London and had a uti at the weekend. I couldn't get an out of hours appointment and did end up buying one of these kits and getting antibiotics from the pharmacy. It worked ok but was more of a faff than just peeing on a stick and showing the stick to the pharmacist, which i would have thought would work ok? It also rejected my first couple of photos due to poor light in McDonald's loos and then told me that as i had taken longer than a minute the test was no longer valid. I had to lie to the app and tell it i had bought a new one. Overall a good idea and it worked out at£25 for kit plus private prescription which is reasonable for cutting out the faff of a dr appointment but overengineered especially as boots don't have loos you can use. Would prefer just to get tested by the pharmacist at my dr surgery if that was an option

God, remember GUM clinics? They were great weren’t they...

GUM clinics still exist, and provide an awesome service

No idea what that has to do with UTIs though.

Not sure why that face. Doesn't the U stand for urinary? I imagine that while they do exist they have suffered cuts.

I don't qualify for this product test as I haven't got a UTI and I'm not in London, but I've read the thread and looked at the map with interest. According to the map, there's only one Boots within a 50 mile radius of me that stocks this thing, and bizarrely it's located on the concourse of a railway station that also has an extended hours NHS walk-in clinic, so why on earth it was picked to pilot this product I can't imagine.

I hope the product is an abject failure. I know a pp said she found it helpful, but I just deplore the way Boots actively exploits all the ways in which the NHS is falling apart. It's not even about taking the opportunity to offer great service in the face of failing NHS provision, as their ordinary pharmacy service is absolute shite, with even the most ordinary drugs routinely out of stock on the day of asking and a firm commitment to employing the least experienced, i.e. cheapest, pharmacists and dispensers possible. And as the pp said herself, the app isn't great to use either, so it's not even a user-friendly product.

If they want to make an honest buck offering a useful service, they should open longer hours and always have a prescriber on site who can take a proper history, run basic tests and prescribe safely, instead of charging customers a fortune for the privilege of doing their own differential diagnosis and their own investigations. Less profit in that though, isn't there.

I live in a small town and two of our local pharmacies will provide a uti testing service which is available out of hours and free to those who hold NHS exemptions or prepayment cards. One of those is Tesco. They can't treat recurrent UTIs but we often signpost patients to this service if they can't get to us within our opening hours.

My UTI is back. Are you still seeking participants?

I used one of these a few weeks ago. I thought it was expensive but it was much easier and convenient than trying to get a GPS appointment. The pharmacist was very thorough with her questions and I got the impression she would have told me to see the GP if it were needed.
I found the test kit easy to use.

I'll use one again if I needed.

I would find this so useful if it worked for children. DD gets UTIs quite frequently but the nature of my work and school/childcare arrangements is that I usually only find out on Friday afternoon/evenings when she comes home and starts crying on the toilet, and then I'm down the Urgent Care Clinic for the night or first thing Saturday, waiting hours with her (ad my older child who can't be left home alone!) to be seen, and missing meals/activities.

OMG Mumsnet! I volunteered to test and the UTI test was delivered without any packaging.

I found the box outside my flat door, inside my building. I imagine a kind soul from one of the other 12 FLATS and approximately 20 people who live in the building rescued it from the communal hallway and put it outside my door (on a communal stairway)

I didn’t really need it advertised that I have had delivered a “Urine Self-Testing Kit for Urinary Tract Infection.

Good product though!

😱😱😱😱