Somewhere between finding a flat and learning which bin goes out on which day, most newcomers to London forget to do the one thing that matters most the first time they actually fall ill: register with a local doctor. It is easy to put off, because you feel fine, and the system is not always obvious from the outside. But a registered general practitioner, universally shortened to GP, is the front door to nearly all non-emergency healthcare in England, and getting through that door before you need to is one of the quietest, most useful things you can do when you settle in.

Why registering early matters

The GP is the hinge of the whole health system. Referrals to specialists, most prescriptions, routine screening, vaccinations, sick notes for work and ongoing management of long-term conditions all flow through your registered practice. If you wait until you are unwell to register, you may find that the surgery near you has temporarily closed its list, or that the first available routine appointment is a couple of weeks away. Registering while you are healthy means the relationship already exists when you suddenly need it, and it also means your medical history starts building up in one place rather than scattering across walk-in clinics.

There is a second, less obvious benefit. Once you are on a practice list, you can usually access a great deal remotely: ordering repeat prescriptions through an app, viewing test results, and in many cases messaging the surgery rather than sitting in a phone queue. None of that is available to someone who has never registered.

What you actually need to register

This is the part that trips people up, because the rules and the reality do not always match. Officially, you do not need proof of address, identification, or immigration status to register with a GP in England. NHS guidance is clear that a practice cannot refuse you simply because you lack these documents, and care from a GP surgery is free at the point of use regardless of your nationality. In practice, many surgeries will still ask for a proof of address and some form of ID because it makes their administration easier, so it is worth bringing them if you have them, while knowing that their absence is not supposed to be a barrier.

The core of registration is a short form, historically called the GMS1, plus a brief health questionnaire covering things like allergies, current medication and family history. Increasingly this is done online through the practice website or the central NHS registration service, so you may never handle a paper form at all. You will need to register with a practice whose catchment area covers where you live, which is why the process starts with finding out which surgeries accept patients from your postcode.

• Find the practices near your postcode and check which are accepting new patients.
• Complete the registration form, online where possible.
• Supply any health information the practice asks for.
• Do all of this in your first couple of weeks, not during your first illness.

Using the system when you are actually ill

Once registered, the trick is matching the problem to the right service, because turning up at the wrong place wastes hours. For anything that is genuinely life-threatening, chest pain, severe bleeding, difficulty breathing, a suspected stroke, the answer is always the emergency number, and that never changes. But the vast majority of health problems are not emergencies, and there is a whole tier of services designed for them.

For urgent but non-emergency issues, especially in the evenings and at weekends when your GP is closed, the non-emergency phone and online service can assess your symptoms and direct you to the right place, whether that is an urgent care centre, an out-of-hours doctor or simply advice to rest and monitor. It can also arrange a call-back from a clinician. Pharmacies, meanwhile, are wildly underused. A pharmacist can advise on and, for a growing list of common conditions, even supply treatment for things like sore throats, urinary infections and minor skin complaints without any appointment at all. Walking into a pharmacy first is often the fastest route to feeling better.

• For a life-threatening emergency, call the emergency services or go to accident and emergency.
• For urgent problems when your GP is shut, use the non-emergency helpline to be pointed to the right service.
• For minor ailments and medication advice, speak to a pharmacist before booking anything.
• For ongoing or routine matters, book with your registered GP practice.

Prescriptions, dentists and the gaps to plan for

A couple of things surprise people who assume everything is uniformly free. Prescriptions in England carry a fixed charge per item, currently around ten pounds, regardless of the actual cost of the medicine. If you need regular medication, a prepayment certificate lets you pay a flat sum for three or twelve months and then take as many prescriptions as you need, which pays for itself quickly if you collect more than a handful of items a year. Certain groups, including under-eighteens, over-sixties, and people with particular medical conditions, are exempt from charges altogether.

Dentistry is the genuine weak spot. Dental care is not run in the same way as GP care, it is not free for most adults, and finding a dentist who is taking on new patients under the public system can be genuinely difficult in London. If you can register with one, do it early, and do not assume you will be able to find one the week you develop toothache. Eye tests and glasses sit in a similar semi-private space, though tests are free for some groups.

Settling in without a scramble

None of this is complicated once you have done it, but almost all of it is easier to arrange in advance than in the middle of a fever. The pattern that works is simple: in your first fortnight in a new area, find the practices that cover your postcode, register with one that is accepting patients, download whatever app that practice uses, and make a mental note of your nearest pharmacy and urgent care centre. Sort a dentist if you possibly can.

Do those few things and the health system, which can feel opaque and slightly intimidating from the outside, quietly becomes something that works for you. The first time you wake up feeling awful, you will already know exactly who to contact and where to go, which is worth far more than any single appointment. Health is one of those areas where a small amount of boring preparation buys a great deal of calm later, and there is no better time to do it than the unglamorous early weeks when everything else about a new city still feels new.