Viagra Corner: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Medicine

JADED COMMUTERS can give themselves a lift on the way home by popping into their railway station medical centre for a supply of Viagra.

Medicentre, the chain of private medical clinics located on London rail stations and in shopping malls in the North and Midlands, is offering a bulk-buy deal on the drug to capitalise on the temporary NHS ban announced last week by Frank Dobson, the Secretary of State for Health.

The clinics are charging pounds 120 for a one-hour consultation and blood test under their new impotence service, but the fee is refundable if patients buy 78 tablets at pounds 15 each, making a total of pounds 1,170.

A spokeswoman for Medicentre said: "You can get it in Boots for less but you have to have a private prescription from a doctor first and that can cost up to pounds 50. Patients will only be prescribed Viagra if it is appropriate after they have had the full consultation."

If the drug is made available on the NHS, one in four GPs would be opposed to it, according to a survey by BBC Radio 4's Today programme. The survey of 100 doctors found even among those who said it should be prescribed on the NHS, three-quarters thought it should be rationed or restricted in some way.