Membership Terms

Last updated 22 October 2026

These terms set out what the practice provides, what it charges and what it doesn't do. I go through them with you before you join, and I spend the most time on what's excluded, so nothing catches you out when you need it.

These terms are an agreement between you and Ben Ingram Limited (company number 09392382), trading as Dr Ben Ingram Private General Practice and registered with the Care Quality Commission as Ravn Health. Dr Ben Ingram provides your care personally, and where these terms say “I” or “me”, they mean him acting for the company.

1. What the practice provides

Every membership includes a direct line to me from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, and one doctor holding your whole record. The rest is built around what your household needs. It can include home visits, same-day assessment, the yearly Assessment and your annual panel, reviews through the year, referrals and letters, prescriptions, and care for your children under 18.

What your membership includes is written in your membership schedule, which you get before you join and which forms part of these terms. Anything outside your schedule is available at the rates it sets out. Your fee pays for my time and my judgment. Every extra test, scan, consultant fee and medicine is arranged at cost with no markup, as section 10 explains.

2. The Assessment

Every adult member has a baseline Assessment, and it's part of the membership fee. People join in different ways, after our first call, after a First Visit, after the Assessment or straight away, and every route ends with the same baseline and the same fee. If you join without having had the Assessment, I complete it within five weeks of your start date.

The Assessment takes about half a day, in person. It covers a full history and clinical examination, blood tests including the standard annual panel, and a written plan, which you receive within a week. If I think something beyond the panel is worth adding, such as imaging, I tell you what it is, why it matters and what it costs, and I only order it if you agree. It's then charged at cost under section 10.

Children don't have the Assessment. When a child joins, I check their height and weight so I can follow their growth, and I examine them further where their history calls for it or you'd like something checked.

You can also buy the Assessment on its own before deciding about membership. It is £1,440 for one adult and £2,040 for a couple. If you join the practice within thirty days of receiving your written plan, I credit the fee in full against your membership. The thirty days run from the day the plan reaches you, not the day of the appointment, the booking or the payment. If you pay annually, the credit comes off your first year's fee. If you pay the first three months up front, it's spread evenly across your first twelve monthly fees, starting with that payment. The credit applies once, can't be passed to someone else, and isn't refunded in cash if you decide not to join.

2a. The First Visit

The First Visit is a shorter, separate service you can buy before deciding anything else. I come to your home for an evening. I take a full history, measure your blood pressure, height and waist, read the results, letters and records you already hold, go through your medicines and supplements, map your family history and check which screening applies to you. There's no blood panel and no full physical examination. You keep a written summary the same evening.

It is £480 for one adult and £680 for a household of two adults. Beyond about an hour's drive, a travel charge is agreed before anything is booked.

If you go on to buy the Assessment, or to join, within thirty days of receiving your written summary, I credit the fee in full against whichever you choose. The thirty days run from the day you receive the summary, not the day of the visit or the payment. If you have both the First Visit and the Assessment and then join, both fees come off your membership, so you pay the same in your first year whichever route you took. The credit applies once, can't be passed to someone else, and isn't refunded in cash if you go no further.

3. Membership and fees

Your fee is agreed with you before you join, reflects what your membership includes, and is written into your membership schedule. A child's care ends on their 18th birthday unless we agree otherwise.

The rate you join at is held for three years. After that it can rise by the Consumer Prices Index and no more. I give you sixty days' notice of any rise, and you can cancel within that time. Your rate never moves to the price published for new members. There's no registration fee.

You pay in one of two ways. If you pay the first three months up front, that payment covers months one to three, your direct debit starts on the first day of month four, and it carries on monthly until either of us gives one month's written notice. If you pay annually, you pay twelve months in advance at the cost of ten months' fees.

4. The first ninety days, and refunds

The first ninety days are a mutual decision. If you decide the practice isn't right for you, or I decide I'm not the doctor to help you safely, I refund every fee you've paid me, including any Assessment or First Visit fee credited against your membership. The one deduction is laboratory and imaging work already done, at the price I was charged, because I've already paid those providers. That includes your annual panel if you've had it, and tests done but not yet invoiced. You keep your assessment and your plan.

After ninety days, you can end your membership at any time on one month's written notice. If you paid the first three months up front, that payment is not refundable after day ninety, because it has paid for the care in those months. If you paid annually, I refund a twelfth of your annual fee for every month you have left, within fourteen days.

This refund is part of membership. It doesn't apply to Sentinel, which has its own terms in sections 11 and 15.

5. Access, reviews and same-day assessment

Membership includes a direct line to me from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, answered the same day. Where your schedule includes it, you can have a same-day assessment by phone or video within those hours when you're unwell. If I can't assess something remotely, I see you in person.

Your reviews happen as often as your schedule sets out, and more often when your care needs it, up to monthly while we adjust a medicine.

5a. The same-day answer, and what happens if I miss it

I answer every call or message to the direct line between 8am and 8pm on the same day. If I miss that on a day you needed me, tell me and I'll credit you a month of your fee. You don't have to argue the point. If you say I missed it, I missed it.

The credit covers my answering, not the outcome of your care. It doesn't apply to contact outside those hours, to a channel other than the direct line, or to planned cover I've told you about in advance under section 12.

6. Home visits, clinical indication and zones

I make a home visit when I judge one is clinically needed, up to the number in your schedule, at no extra charge. Beyond that number, or if your schedule includes none, a visit is charged at your schedule's rate. Whether a visit is clinically needed is my decision.

Within about an hour's drive of my base there's no travel charge. Further away I still visit, and we agree a travel charge before I set off. Distance is measured by typical drive time, not miles, and if you move we agree the position again in writing.

7. Messaging and fair use

The direct line covers you, your family, your results and your plan. Fair use applies: anything that needs a history or an examination becomes a consultation, at my judgment. The line isn't a route to urgent or out-of-hours care. Outside the hours in section 5 I often see messages and I'll act on anything that plainly can't wait, but I don't promise to, and urgent care stays with 999, 111 and the NHS.

8. Prescribing and documents

Private prescriptions, referral letters, fit notes and reports that come out of your care are part of your fee where your schedule includes them, and otherwise charged at your schedule's rate. You choose the pharmacy that dispenses any medicine and pay it directly at its own price. I don't handle that money or add to it. I don't issue a fit note, prescription, referral or report without a clinical assessment.

This practice does not prescribe controlled drugs, with two defined exceptions.

Testosterone is a Schedule 4 Part 2 controlled drug. Where there's a clear medical reason, I prescribe and manage testosterone replacement under Sentinel, keeping levels in a healthy range and monitoring them closely, as section 11 explains. I don't prescribe testosterone on request alone.

I'll prescribe Schedule 5 preparations, such as co-codamol, as a single short course where it's clinically right. I don't issue repeats, and your NHS GP handles those.

I don't prescribe any other controlled drug, whoever started it. That includes opioids, stimulants, benzodiazepines, sleeping tablets, gabapentin and pregabalin. If you need one, I'll tell you plainly and refer you to someone who prescribes it.

9. What the practice does not provide

These are not available to members at any price:

• Urgent and emergency care, overnight care and any out-of-hours service.
• Maternity care, addiction services and the management of complex mental illness.
• Controlled drug prescribing, other than testosterone under Sentinel and one-off Schedule 5 courses, as section 8 explains.
• Microsuction for earwax removal.
• Medico-legal reports and expert witness work.

If you need any of these, I'll tell you plainly and refer you to someone who provides them.

I can also do the paperwork and medicals a GP usually provides outside NHS work, at a fee I quote before I start. That includes DVLA and HGV medicals, taxi licensing medicals, fitness-to-work and pre-employment forms, insurance reports and fitness-to-travel letters. I'll only complete a form I can answer from what I know about you, so for some I'll need to examine you or read your records first.

I don't do any assessment that needs its own accreditation or appointment. That rules out aviation, seafarer and diving medicals, visa and immigration medicals, statutory health surveillance at work, and drug and alcohol testing for legal or employment purposes. If you need one of these, I'll tell you who can do it.

10. What your fee covers, and what passes through at cost

Where your schedule includes the annual panel, it's part of your fee, once a year for each adult it covers, and never invoiced separately. Your annual panel is the standard panel I run for every adult member each year. Its current contents are on the Assessment page, and I'll tell you if they change.

Everything beyond the panel is passed to you at cost, with no markup, and I'll show you the invoice if you ask. That covers extra laboratory tests, scans, consultant fees and any medicine I give you directly, and vaccines once I offer them. Nothing beyond the panel is ordered until I've told you the cost and you've agreed. Where your schedule includes referrals, making one carries no charge. A specialist's fee is theirs, and you pay them directly. You can have any investigation I recommend arranged through my providers or by yourself, and I read the results either way.

11. Sentinel hormone monitoring

Sentinel is a separate monitoring and harm reduction service for men using testosterone or other performance compounds. It costs £180 a month, with the first three months paid in advance. An existing member pays £90 a month from the start, monthly, with no initial term. After the first three months it runs month to month, and you can end it on one month's written notice. Every test is at cost. Where there's a clear medical reason, I prescribe and manage testosterone replacement as part of Sentinel, keeping levels in a healthy range and monitoring them closely. I don't prescribe or supply performance or anabolic compounds, and I don't advise on cycles, doses or stacks. Sentinel has its own scope, consent and liability terms and is never part of membership. Full terms are on the Sentinel page and in its own service agreement.

12. Absence and cover

I tell you about planned leave at least three weeks ahead. While I'm away I usually stay contactable and answer calls and messages as normal. When I can't, because of a time difference or because I'm unwell, another GP with access to your record covers me under a standing arrangement, and I tell you who it is at the time. If you need seeing in person, that colleague sees you, fully briefed. My response commitments pause only when there's a practical reason I can't keep them myself, and the covering doctor keeps them for me while that lasts.

13. Your NHS registration

Membership doesn't replace your NHS GP, and I strongly recommend you stay registered with one. I still work in the NHS, and with your consent I'll write to your NHS GP whenever it's in your interest.

14. Complaints and data

Concerns are handled under the Complaints Procedure. Your information is handled under the Privacy Policy. Both form part of these terms.

15. Your statutory rights

Nothing in these terms removes or reduces your legal rights. Because you join at a distance or away from my premises, the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 give you the right to cancel within fourteen days of joining, for any reason. If you ask me to start your care within that time and then cancel, I may charge for care already given and the cost of any tests already done.

If you cancel membership within those fourteen days, I refund your upfront or annual payment, less the care already given and the cost of tests already done. Sentinel's first three months are paid in advance. If you cancel Sentinel within those fourteen days, I refund what you've paid, less the care already given and the cost of tests already done, including any not yet invoiced.

This right sits alongside the ninety-day refund in section 4. Where the two differ, whichever is better for you applies.

16. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.