Genito-urinary medicine (GUM) clinics

A GUM clinic is one of the places you can go to for an HIV test. (You can read about other places to have HIV tests elsewhere in this section of our website.)

At a GUM clinic the staff will give you advice and support before and after testing, help you decide upon any treatments that may be necessary, and provide all kinds of information about sexual health. There may be aspects of your sexual health that you haven’t considered and preventative measures that they can help you with, such as vaccinating you against Hepatitis A and B.

All these services are free, confidential and anonymous (if you want them to be). And none of the results will be put on to your medical records or be sent to your GP.

Getting an appointment

Most GUM clinics have both drop-in and appointment services. Whatever your needs, phone the clinic to find when it is open and when they run the service that you’re interested in, and how to access it.

Also, you should think about whether you want to visit the GUM clinic that’s nearest to where you live or prehaps travel to one that’s a little further away.

Specialist HIV clinic

Often hospitals in larger towns and cities will have a specialist HIV clinic attached to them where people living with HIV go for their medical treatment. You can often get tested for HIV there but unlike a GUM you wont get tested for other sexually transmitted infections. The fact that you've gone for a test won't go on your medical record.