Harley Street. Set down at the door, and a car that waits however long the appointment runs.

The Marylebone medical district sits in a rectangle between Marylebone Road at the top and Cavendish Square at the bottom, bounded roughly by Great Portland Street to the east and Marylebone High Street to the west. Harley Street gives the area its name, but the consulting rooms spread across Wimpole Street, Devonshire Place and Devonshire Street, Weymouth Street, Beaumont Street, Nottingham Place and Queen Anne Street, and a great many of them are in converted houses with a single front door and a narrow hall.

Among the private hospitals a few minutes' walk from each other are The London Clinic, whose main building runs between Harley Street and Devonshire Place and looks out onto Marylebone Road, with consulting rooms at 5 Devonshire Place and the Duchess of Devonshire Wing at number 22; The Harley Street Clinic on Weymouth Street; King Edward VII's Hospital on Beaumont Street; and The Princess Grace Hospital on Nottingham Place. We name them because they are where cars are asked to go, and for no other reason. We have no relationship with any of them and we recommend none.

In practice that means two appointments on the same morning may be two hundred metres apart and still worth driving between, because the walk is across a busy one way street with a case to carry, in October rain.

The pattern that works is simple and it does not change. The chauffeur sets you down at the entrance, or at the quieter side entrance if your consulting rooms have one and you tell us in advance. He then moves the car to a legal waiting point a few streets away, usually towards Marylebone High Street, Portland Place or the north side of Cavendish Square, and stays with it. When you or your assistant sends a message, the car comes back to the same door: a matter of a few minutes, longer if the one way system sends him round the block. Nobody is standing on a step in the cold and nobody has a warden writing while they wait.

The chauffeur stays for the whole appointment rather than being sent away and called back. This matters more here than almost anywhere. Consulting rooms in Marylebone run late far more often than they run early, and a car released at three because the appointment was booked for two is a car you cannot get back at quarter past four. Holding it costs time and nothing else.

A good many Marylebone appointments begin at an airport. On a scheduled flight the chauffeur meets you inside the terminal, watches the actual arrival time rather than the printed one, and waits for the delay. See meet and greet. If you are arriving privately, the car goes to the terminal on the field at Luton, Farnborough, Biggin Hill, Northolt or London City, or the dedicated arrivals facility at Heathrow, and the chauffeur coordinates with the handling agent. See private terminal transfers.

Where a stay runs to several weeks of appointments, most clients settle on either a dedicated chauffeur for the period or a block of as directed hours each day. It is calmer than booking each journey separately, and it means the same person knows the routine by the second week.