Walk right in

IT'S BECOME a clich of modern life that we're often too busy to seek medical help. GPs are traditionally the gateway to the health service. But the demands of a hectic working life can leave no time to visit your local surgery during working hours.

And your family doctor is usually so busy anyway it may take more than a day to get an appointment - by which time your headache, upset stomach or dodgy back may be already on the mend.

Now, though, there's no longer any excuse. There's been a quiet little revolution in health care in York - and now you can literally walk in off the street for a professional medical consultation.

The NHS Walk-in Centre in Monkgate actually opened on Easter Monday: though it was such a low-key opening many people still probably don't realise it's there. One of 36 such centres being set up around the country this year, it is designed to make health care more accessible in today's busy world, and that's precisely what it does.

Walk in to the centre at any time between 7am to 10pm any day of the week - including Sunday - and you're guaranteed to see a fully-qualified and experienced NHS nurse. No fuss, no bureaucracy - not even any appointment needed. You can just drop in at your convenience, without having to take time off work or rearrange your day. It also takes the uncertainty out of those awful weekends when your baby has an ugly rash and you just don't know whether it's serious enough to bother the emergency doctors or the hospital's casualty department. Take him along to the walk-in centre and a nurse will either be able to reassure you at once - or refer for treatment.

That, at least, is the theory. But how does the new centre check out in practice?

Posing as an office worker with a bad back (not actually that far from the truth), I walked in one busy lunchtime last week.

The centre is housed in the grand building that fronts on to Monkgate which was previously the entrance to the Monkgate Health Centre.

Walk up the steps and you come into a cool, airy reception. A friendly receptionist took details of my name, age, address and GP, which she typed into a computer. I said I'd come because of back pain. "Are you happy for your GP to be notified?" she asked. Of course, I said: adding I hadn't really wanted to bother her with something so trivial.

The waiting room was empty - and I'd sat there for less than five minutes before a cheerful-looking man opened a door and asked: "Stephen?"

He was Andrew Grant, one of the three senior nurses and six staff nurses based at the centre. He led me through to a comfortable and well-equipped consulting room where, in an unhurried, informal but entirely professional way he talked me through what was wrong.

Actually, I admitted, I felt a bit silly. A friend had come to stay with his two children. We'd been walking the city walls and, challenged by them to jump down a flight of steps, I did so - bruising my foot and jarring my back in the process. That was several weeks ago, and both were still quite painful.

Andrew probed. Any pain in the legs? he asked. Does the pain move around, to your sides or anywhere else? Any swelling, or discolouration? Any history of major illness? There was no physical examination: but as he asked the questions, he gave me the time to think about them. I felt he was listening to my answers; and that if there had been a hint of a major problem, he'd have picked up on it.

Eventually, satisfied there was nothing seriously wrong, he diagnosed bruising or mild sprain, and possibly a little inflammation. It would, he said, take some time to clear up: but a painkiller such as ibuprofen or Neurofen - available across the counter without prescription - would help.

This was precisely the same diagnosis I'd been given by my GP a week or so earlier. Then, I'd not bothered with the drug, deciding the pain wasn't that bad and there was no need for a painkiller. Andrew explained, though - as my GP hadn't - that ibuprofen contained an anti-inflammatory agent which could help the healing process. So it was worth getting after all.