Our Story
Dean Street has a long history of providing s*xual health services. The world’s first VD clinic for men was based at 91 Dean Street, London in 1862. Over the years our GUM clinic has had several different names and has been based in different parts of London. Originally we were part of the Westminster Hospital and were known as Outpatient 6. It was at the Westminster Hospital that Professor Brian Gazzard diagnosed one of Europe’s first cases of AIDS in 1981. He’s still working with us today.
In 1993, the Westminster Hospital moved to Fulham Road to become part of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Outpatient 6 relocated to Vincent Square and we changed our name to the Victoria Clinic. We’ve been known as ’56 Dean Street’ since we moved to Soho in March 2009.
We aim to deliver a world class HIV and s*xual health service for all our patients by utilising the latest technology in a modern environment delivered by a warm and friendly team of staff.
We’ve always tried to be at the forefront of developing high quality services. In 2003, we were the first NHS service to offer rapid 60 second HIV results. On World AID’s day in 2011 we set the World Record for the most HIV tests performed in one location at G-A-Y Bar in Soho, inspiring the launch of national HIV testing week the following year. In 2014 we opened Dean Street Express, the first clinic in the world to have an on-site Infinity machine, allowing us to give results within 6 hours. In 2015 we opened the first NHS PrEP service selling Truvada through ‘NHS Additional care’, providing the monitoring for free. In Dec 2016 came the results we’ve fought for since we opened in Soho, a 40% drop in new HIV diagnosis at the clinic. We’re not going to stop there. We’re determined to end HIV transmission in London.
