Private X-ray for Edmonton, N9 and N18 — £120 an Image, Seven Days a Week

What £120 buys, and who travels in from Edmonton

The price is published rather than quoted on request: £120 for each X-ray, covering the exposure, the appointment time set aside for it and the written report that follows. If two areas need imaging, that is two X-rays, and the team give you the total when they ring back rather than adding it up afterwards. People come here from Edmonton Green and the N9 and N18 streets either side of Fore Street, and from Ponders End, Bush Hill Park, Tottenham and Wood Green.

The catalogue covers the chest and the abdomen, the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine, the pelvis and hip, the knee, ankle and foot, and the shoulder, collarbone, elbow, wrist and hand. The whole service is described on the X-ray scans page; these are the X-rays that can be booked straight from Edmonton, each with its fee and the time booked for it:

Not sure an X-ray is the right test for what is happening? Tell the team what happened and they will help you work it out, or book a private GP appointment and be examined before anything is imaged, because nobody can diagnose you over the telephone. If the area you need is not on the list above, ask, since every scan the clinic offers sits in one place. GPs and consultants sending a patient will find what we need under refer a patient.

How an X-ray is taken here

An X-ray passes a small, controlled dose of ionising radiation through the body onto a detector on the other side. Bone absorbs more of it than soft tissue does and comes out pale on the picture, which is why this is the test reached for after a suspected fracture, for a worn joint and for the chest. Nothing is injected for a plain film, nothing enters the body, and the exposure itself cannot be felt.

Tell the team when you book if you are pregnant or think you might be, so that conversation happens at the booking stage rather than in the corridor on the day. Separately, and so that nobody arrives expecting one, the clinic does not carry out pregnancy scans of any kind.

Booking for a child? Tell us their age when you ring. A patient under 16 must be brought by a parent or someone with parental responsibility, who consents to the test with them, and some examinations are not suitable for children — the team will say plainly if yours is not one we can do. Children are more sensitive to radiation, so the decision is weighed more carefully still, and paediatric care covers the rest.

The order of events once you are in the room:

1. Metal comes off first — rings, a chain, a watch, coins in a pocket — because it shows up on the image and can sit over the very thing being looked at.
2. The radiographer places the area against or on top of the detector and shows you the position to hold.
3. They step behind a screen and make the exposure, which is over in an instant.
4. The picture is checked there and then, and a second view is taken if the first does not answer the question.

There is no sedation, no dye and nothing to recover from, so you can eat, drive and go back to work straight afterwards. You may be given a gown to change into for some areas, which is done in private. If what you describe turns out to be a tendon or a muscle rather than a bone, the radiographer will say so, and an ultrasound scan may be the test to arrange instead.

Self-referral, radiation, and why every X-ray is justified first

Self-referral is accepted, which means you can arrange a private X-ray yourself with no referral letter. That is not the same as being X-rayed on request. Every X-ray is justified by a clinician here before it is taken: the team ask about your symptoms and about previous imaging, and if the exposure is not justified they say so and suggest what would answer the question instead.

That check exists because ionising radiation is never entirely without consequence, small as the dose for a plain film is. Previous imaging is worth raising on the call, since a picture of the same area taken a few weeks ago may already hold the answer, and repeating it adds a dose without adding information. If a letter from a GP, a physiotherapist or a consultant exists, bring it, because it tells the radiographer which view to take and which question the report has to settle.

What the justification conversation covers:

• What the symptom is, when it started and what brought it on.
• Any X-ray, ultrasound or other imaging of the same area, and roughly when it was done.
• Whether you are pregnant or think you might be.
• Whether a different test — often an ultrasound scan — would answer the question with no radiation at all.

If the conclusion is that an X-ray is not the right test for you, you will be told that before you have paid for one. That is the part of self-referral that keeps it safe rather than merely convenient, and the standard is the same whether a doctor sent you or you booked yourself.

How long it takes, what happens if a fracture is found, and when the report arrives

An X-ray appointment is booked at around 10 minutes. Most of that goes on positioning rather than on radiation, and it covers arriving, being placed, the exposure and a look at the picture before you leave. More than one area takes a little longer, because each is imaged and reported on its own, and the total is agreed with you beforehand.

This is a diagnostic service, so it is worth saying plainly what follows if the picture shows a break. Setting a bone is not something that happens on these premises: there is no fracture clinic and no plaster room. What will not happen is your finding out from an e-mail: anything urgent is raised with you on the day rather than left for the report. Treatment — a plaster, immobilisation, an orthopaedic opinion — is arranged through your GP, an urgent treatment centre or A&E, and you take the images and the report with you.

Your report is normally e-mailed to you as a PDF within one working day of your appointment. You receive a copy and, with your consent, we can send it to your GP or consultant — for a weekend appointment that copy can take up to 48 hours. The images are reported by a registered clinician, and the report is the document your own doctor acts on.

How your results reach you sets out what arrives and what to do with it. Same or next-day appointments are often available, and the clinic opens Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm and from 8am to 8pm on Saturday and Sunday, because injuries do not keep office hours. The price list sets out what everything else here costs.

Driving in from Edmonton, and the bus if you would rather not

Your appointment takes place at the London Diagnostic Centre, at the rear of Grovelands Medical Centre, 1 Grovelands Rd, London N13 4RJ. The clinic's own road links Aldermans Hill with Fox Lane; Green Lanes and the Palmers Green Triangle are a short walk east of it. Most patients from N9 and N18 drive, and it is a short drive. The road that carries Edmonton north to south is the A1010 Fore Street and Hertford Road corridor, with the A10 Great Cambridge Road up the western side and the A406 North Circular across the south. The clinic lies west of all of them, so the run is across to Green Lanes and then along Aldermans Hill, with Grovelands Road turning off between there and Fox Lane.

If you would rather not drive, the W6 is the one to know: it runs between Edmonton Green and Palmers Green and on to Southgate, so there is a direct bus from the middle of Edmonton into the district the clinic sits in. Palmers Green station is on Aldermans Hill, roughly 350 metres from the door. The railway is less help in this direction — Edmonton Green and Silver Street are on the Liverpool Street line and Meridian Water's trains go to Stratford, so the railway carries you south or east rather than west towards N13.

Where patients travel in from on this side of the borough:

• Edmonton Green and the N9 streets around it, by car or on the W6
• N18 and the Fore Street corridor, and Tottenham to the south beyond the A406
• Ponders End, Bush Hill Park and Enfield to the north, all of them an A10 run
• Palmers Green, Winchmore Hill and Wood Green, the nearest districts on the clinic's own side

Ask about parking and about the entrance when the team ring back, because the clinic sits behind the medical centre rather than on the road front. If you are travelling in with an arm you cannot use or a leg you cannot put weight on — or you use a wheelchair, cannot manage steps, or need an interpreter or somebody with you — say so on the same call. They will tell you where to stop, how far you will have to walk, and what the building can and cannot do. Being driven is usually easier than driving yourself. It is worth reading what to expect on the day before you set off, and the FAQ page answers a good many of the questions people ring with. The pin is dropped on Edmonton because that is the district served; the X-ray room is at the N13 address in the panel above.