Supermarket clinics come to London

LONDON —Britain’s J Sainsbury has become the first supermarket in the country to offer an in-store physician-staffed clinic.

According to published reports, the initiative, dubbed Doctors in Store, is the idea of Manchester-area family physician Mohammed Jiva.

Unlike in the United States, where most of the in-store clinics are staffed by nurse practitioners, Jiva has teamed up with three other medical practices to take turns seeing patients, in addition to their regular office hours.

Only those patients registered with the supermarket doctors’ practice will be able to make an appointment because the country’s clinics are financed by regional government trusts, so, to keep the service free of charge, the trust that finances the doctor’s practice needs to make sure that only patients there use the service.

The team of government-sponsored doctors will see patients by appointment two nights a week and on Saturdays, to start, in an exam room located inside the pharmacy area of a Sainsbury’s store in Manchester. Patients who are shopping will be alerted via electronic pager when a doctor is ready to see them.

If the clinic is successful, more clinics are expected to be introduced this year.

The in-store clinic is designed to be a service for those patients needing access to non-emergency care outside of normal business hours. The Doctors in Store physicians will be able to access patients’ medical records online and refer patients for more treatment, if needed.