Warranty service in UK

[scillyisles]

I have a T61p (July 2008 build) which is exhibiting the Nvidia FX570M problems in that it fails to display when used for extended periods.
In the past when repairing broken Thinkpads, one could drop the laptop off at a local TNT or other courier depot and the machines would be shipped to Scotland - repaired and then shipped back.
It would appear that now one has to find a Lenovo authorised warranty service provider - which looks like Computacenter here in London and then somehow arrange for them to repair it.
Can other UK Thinkpad users confirm that this is the case? In the US and Canada it looks like you still have the old repair facilities through Thinkpad EasyServ but here in the UK it looks like a big downgrade in service provision from what it was in the past.