Dr Elena Ruiz
Family medicine · Founding partner
Opened Wellkin in 2002. Paediatric and adolescent care, and the person who wrote the thirty-minute rule.
The practice
Wellkin opened in 2002 with two doctors and a rule they have never revised: a first appointment gets thirty minutes, because the useful sentence is almost never the first one a patient says.
What we refuse to do
Most of what makes a practice feel rushed is a decision somebody made about volume. We made the opposite decisions, and we wrote them down so a new doctor inherits them rather than guesses.
Who you will see
Everyone here is salaried and stays. The shortest tenure on this page is four years, which is the single biggest reason the notes are worth reading.
Dr Samuel Achebe
Family medicine · Partner
Diabetes and cardiovascular risk. Runs the Saturday morning clinic so shift workers are not left out.
Dr Hannah Lindqvist
Family medicine
Women's health and perimenopause. Joined from a hospital obstetrics rota in 2016 and has not looked back.
Ana Beltrán, NP
Nurse practitioner
Same-day sick visits, immunisations and wound care. Usually the first person a walk-in meets.
Dr Marcus Idowu
Family medicine
Holds the asthma review clinic and is the reason our inhaler technique rate is what it is.
Dr Priya Nandakumar
Family medicine
Older adults and medication reviews. Will spend an entire visit taking things off a prescription list.
How we got here
Two rooms above the pharmacy
Elena Ruiz and a part-time nurse open with 140 registered patients and a paper diary that still exists in a drawer.
2002
The ground floor, and a second doctor
The practice takes the whole building. Step-free access, four consulting rooms, and Saturday mornings begin.
2009
Bloods drawn on site
A phlebotomy room removes the trip across town that had been the single most common complaint for six years.
2015
Telehealth, kept afterwards
Video visits arrive out of necessity and stay out of usefulness — follow-ups and medication reviews have never gone back.
2020
Six doctors, 4,800 patients
Still one building, still salaried, and still thirty minutes for a first appointment. The list is open.
2026
How we practise
Not values on a wall — numbers a practice manager reports every quarter, and the ones we would want to see if we were choosing a doctor.
Choose your doctor
Registration takes about four minutes and you can name the doctor you would like to see. If they are booked out, we will tell you by how long rather than quietly assign someone else.