Free Chlamydia Testing

Chlamydia testing is a free and confidential service offered by the NHS. You may also be tested and treated on the NHS for other types of sexually transmitted infections. This can be offered;

  • at home, by postal service from the NHS
  • at a local doctor’s surgery or
  • at a local clinic or clinic in another area. These clinics mainly treat sexually transmitted diseases or sexual health related issues, such as contraception. These clinics may be called specialised clinics, such as an UroGential (UG) clinics, sexual health clinics, sexually transmitted disease clinics, sexual health services, contraception and family planning or youth clinics.

Some of these clinics run drop in sessions and so an appointment is not always necessary. Testing may also be offered in your college or even at nightclubs where you may receive promotional merchandise for agreeing to take the test for Chlamydia.


Paying for Chlamydia testing

  • You can buy a home testing kit from high street chemists. You will be required to take a urine sample and post it to the manufactures laboratory for analysis. Your results will be sent back to you by post. Postage is included in the kit and results have been reported to be returned as soon as 3 days after postage of the sample to the laboratory.
  • You may also be treated and tested privately using an private individual GP or
  • by using a private health care company.

However these last two options will also involve paying fees for consultations, private testing and treatment services.

Chlamydia Test

Chlamydia can be painlessly detected by using your morning urine sample for males and females or by a vaginal swab (cotton bud) for females. Swabs can also be taken of the throat, anus or rectum. The procedure for taking swabs can be performed by yourself or a trained health care professional.

Blood tests are not used for diagnosis. However if you have had unprotected sex and have any symptoms common to other sexually transmitted diseases it may be recommended that swabs or blood tests are taken to test for other sexually transmitted diseases at a doctors surgery or clinic.

Vaginal swabs

For females, vaginal swabs can be taken by yourself, by a nurse or doctor and urine specimens are performed by you and returned to the doctor or nurse. The sample involves taking a swab of the lower area of the vagina not the cervix (as is required for smear tests). Unlike a smear test a speculum (the instrument inserted into the vagina for smear testing) does not have to be used.  A swab or a tampon can be used to take a sample of the vagina fluid. You will have to remove your lower level of clothing such as skirt/trousers, tights/underwear and lie down whilst the swab is taken. The taking of the swab is very quick and may take a minute or so only

Urine testing

The urine sample does not have to be done at a surgery or clinic it can be done at home using a kit that you can receive through the post or you can buy a kit from high street chemists. You can also receive results on line. However, for the test and the results to be correct, the sample (swab or urine) has to be returned the same day that it is taken. The samples are then sent for analysis at a laboratory and the results returned to yourself, a doctor, nurse or clinic after 10 days. If you should disagree with the result you can be retested to ensure the diagnosis is a true positive.

You will be asked to re-take the same test procedure after the antibiotic treatment is completed to ensure that the antibiotics worked correctly and that you did not become re-infected.

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