Practice aims

• To provide the best possible health care for our patients.
• To promote better physical and mental health by offering a planned programme of health promotion and preventative care. This is based on national and local guidelines and is aimed at those most at risk.
• To ensure that services are easily accessible, efficient and responsive to the needs of patients.
• To maintain a pleasant, safe and efficient working environment for everyone using the practice
• To include all members of the team in decision-making by encouraging teamwork and good communication
• To ensure that practice income is maximised so that services can be improved and partners and staff are fairly rewarded.

Practice history

The practice was founded in the 1930s in a large doctor's house on Falcondale Road. The practice gradually expanded and moved to 60 Falcondale Road in 1976 and, with further growth, moved to the present location at the rear of the public car park in the centre of Westbury on Trym, in 2008.  We are a longstanding GP training practice.

Practice area and population

The list size is 8200 and rising. The population is mainly white and middle class. There are many elderly people's homes and nursing homes, and 22% of the patient population is over 65 years old (Avon average is 15%). The housing is mainly 1930s with smaller areas of Victorian and council housing.

Patient Services

We provide a comprehensive range of services to our patients in a friendly and efficient setting. These include: 

• Routine surgeries by appointment and home visiting 
• Family planning including pills, injections, implants and coils 
• Maternity care 
• Child health surveillance 
• Minor surgery 
• Vasectomy clinic 
• Travel advice and immunisation including yellow fever 
• Health promotion including vascular disease clinic, well woman checks and a well elderly clinic. The practice achieves upper targets for immunisation and cervical cytology 
• Chronic disease management programmes including asthma, diabetes, coronary heart disease and hypertension 
• Out of hours - in November 1996 the practice joined the North Bristol Out of Hours Co-op. This provides a centre at Southmead Hospital and a car for visiting. All members of the Co-op contribute sessions.

Evaluation of patient services

Routine surgeries by appointment and home visiting

The Practice meets the 24 and 48 hour access targets. Patient satisfaction surveys in recent have consistently demonstrated high levels of satisfaction with the performance of the practice and in particular with the clinical skills of doctors and nurses.

Family planning

We provide IUCD insertions and follow up and all standard contraceptive services.

Maternity care

The Practice provides a full range of maternity services with a midwife run clinic at the Practice premises on a weekly basis. 

Child health surveillance

The Practice provides a weekly well baby clinic run by our health visitor and Dr Morgan. This involves the 6 week checks and immunisations. We achieve the higher targets for all routine immunisations. Other child health surveillance is provided by our attached health visitor according to the Avon protocols.

Minor surgery

The Practice provides a full range of minor surgery procedures. We have a Dewar of liquid nitrogen to ensure a regular supply for cryotherapy, and accredited GPs provide excision of skin lesions. Dr Bench is a GPwSI in dermatology, and we offer an enhanced minor surgery service via GP Care Ltd.

Primary care vasectomy service

Dr McCarthy provides a weekly primary care vasectomy service providing 130 procedures a year. This service is audited annually. It is effective with high patient satisfaction levels, a very low failure rate and low patient complication rates.

Endoscopy service

Dr Cohen is a GPwSI in digestive endoscopy. He currently works at NBT in the endoscopy unit. There are plans a foot to develop a Primary Care Based service.

Travel advice and immunisation including yellow fever

The Practice provides a full range of travel services including yellow fever immunisation. Patients complete a travel questionnaire which allows their needs to be identified and programme planned before their appointment with the nurses.

Health promotion

Services include our vascular disease clinic and well woman checks. The practice achieves upper targets for cervical cytology.

Chronic disease management

Programmes include asthma, diabetes, coronary heart disease and hypertension. The Practice has achieved near maximum quality points in all areas of chronic disease since this area of performance has been introduced by the Government.

Out of hours

From November 2004 the practice no longer provides any OOH cover. However, some of the doctors in the practice work for the out of hours doctors service.

Medical cover for the North Bristol Rehabilitation Centre

Dr Morgan provides a weekly session at the North Bristol Rehabilitation Centre providing medical care for 20 patients recently discharged from hospital or admitted directly from the community. She assesses their medical needs, deals with ongoing and intercurrent illness, and liaises with the patients registered GPs on discharge. The Practice on call doctor deals with emergencies during the week.

Partners

Dr Philip McCarthy MB ChB DRCOG FRCGP (full time)

Interests: minor surgery, practice organisation, health care of homeless people

Dr McCarthy qualified at Bristol in 1982. He became a partner in the practice in 1989 and is a Director of GP Care LLP. He is a provider of a primary care vasectomy service and has led on development of the new premises for the Practice. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of GPs in May 2007.

Dr Michael Cohen BSc MB BS DRCOG FRCP. MRCGP (full time)

Interests: care of elderly, diabetes, gastroenterology, GP training, teaching medical students

Dr Cohen qualified at the London Hospital in 1979 and worked at the Chinese University of Hong Kong before entering general practice in Aylesbury. He became a partner in this practice in 1997. He is also a GP Specialist at Southmead Hospital in digestive endoscopy.

Dr Luke Koupparis BSc MBBS MRCGP DFFP (part time).

Interests: Men's Health, IT, Diabetes, Minor Surgery
Dr Koupparis qualified at St Batholomew’s Hospital London in 1996. He joined us in 2002. He started his medical career doing anaesthetics. He has considerable expertise in IT; he has designed a practice intranet and website. His clinical interests include men's health, diabetes and minor surgery.

Dr Samantha Morgan MBChB DCH DFFP MRCGP (part time).

Interests: Contraception and Sexual Health, Paediatrics

Dr Samantha Morgan qualified from The University of Bristol in 1999 and joined the practice in October 2005, having been a registrar at the practice from August 2003-August 2004

Associate doctor

Dr Lucinda Bench MB BS DRCOG DCH MRCGP DPD

Interests: Dermatology. Minor Surgery.

Dr Bench qualified at the London Hospital in 1985 and joined the practice in 1998. She works 4 sessions a week in the practice. During 2000 she successfully took the MRCGP and she has obtained the Primary Care Dermatology Diploma. She does a session in dermatology at Southmead once a week and is our clinical lead in dermatology at the practice.

Dr Claire Dobson MB BS

Dr Dobson is the latest member of the team to join the practice and was a GP registrar in the practice.

GP Registrar and F2 doctors 

We expect 2 practice registrars to join us in July 2010

Nursing Team

Since 1998 the practice and trust nurses working with the practice have formed an integrated nursing team. It is hoped that this will maximise the use of all the nurses’ skills and will ensure that the patients receive the best possible care in the most appropriate place for their condition.

Nurse Practitioner

Mrs Hayley Ford

Hayley Ford qualified as a nurse in 1991 and started to work with the practice in 1997 having been a district nurse for 2 years. She has undertaken training to become a nurse practitioner in order to acquire additional clinical skills and develop her role in the practice. She qualified in February 2001.

Practice nurses

Anna Prangley joined the practice early in 1999. She has developed her skills in the prevention of coronary heart disease. Anna is a qualified assessor for the RCGP’s Quality Practice Award.

Sarah Bush is the most recent addition to the nursing team having started in 2006. Sarah is an experienced practice nurse and also offers minor illness consultations.

Lyn Booth joined the practice as a phlebotomist in January 2001 and in May 2003 became our Health care Assistant.

Marie Baker: Marie is a phlebotomist who makes it much easier to book in for a blood test at the surgery.

District nurses

District nursing duties are shared within the team based at John Milton Clinic

Health visitors

Sarah Lambert joined the practice in November 2003 as the Health Visitor for the elderly.

Midwife

Mary Horsham qualified as a nurse in 1975 and as a midwife in 1977. She joined the practice in 1992 and is responsible for midwifery care and teaching midwifery students.

Practice management

We hold an annual general meeting in the summer at which we present and discuss the practice annual report. Practice forums to which all staff contribute are held quarterly. A Practice Board that includes the partners, practice manager and lead nurse runs the practice. Away days are held annually for the Board and as required for other groups within the practice. The Practice Board consisting of the partners, the practice manager and lead nurse has overall responsibility for the practice strategy and development. The Board meets monthly.

Mr Ted Edgar, (MA Cantab) Practice Manager

Ted joined the practice in June 2009 having previously worked as a consultant to practices in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire and as a practice manager in Pill and Ashburton in Devon. Prior to that he worked for LloydsTSB in finance, strategy and corporate development.

He has overall responsibility for the running of the practice and particular responsibility for its strategic development, growth and continuous improvement.

Mrs Jackie Nightingale, Assistant Practice Manager

Since Ted’s arrival, Jackie has taken on the role of assistant practice manager with responsibility for the day to day running practice.

Practice administration

Dawn Bennett provides secretarial and administrative support for the practice.

We have an efficient and approachable team of receptionists most of whom have developed administrative expertise and responsibility. The names of the receptionists and their designated area of responsibility are listed below.

Facilities

The practice has five fully equipped treatment rooms and a minor surgery theatre. We are fully computerised with desktop terminals and printers in each surgery. Appointments are computerised. The practice is linked electronically to the PCSA for registration and Southmead Hospital for pathology. We have access to Medline at each terminal via the Internet, and subscribe to the Cochrane Database, eBNF, DTB and MeReC on CD-ROM. We also have a practice library with a good selection of books and an up to date collection of journals.

We have an ECG, defibrillator, vitallograph, nebulisers, Doppler and home blood pressure monitors. We have a practice formulary and monitor our prescribing carefully. The practice is enthusiastic about clinical audit and regularly produces audits on relevant subjects.

Education and training

After a period of rebuilding and extensive change we restarted GP training in 1994. We aim to provide the GP registrar with a challenging year by involving all the practice team in the training process. We hope that all registrars will gain a broad experience and benefit from the different attitudes and skills of the doctors and staff. We aim to help registrars to identify their own needs and encourage them to pursue personal interests. We encourage registrars to carry out projects of interest to both themselves and the practice. We are involved in teaching medical students. We are also currently helping to train Foundation Year 2 doctors. These doctors are in their second year post registration and spend 4 months with us to experience medicine within General Practice.

We also hold meetings for the doctors and in-house training sessions for the practice staff. We hold a practice Clinical Learning Group for the doctors and nurses in the practice to look at clinical issues, skills and attitudes. In order to improve communication we hold primary health care team meetings.

IT

The practice is “paperlight” and all doctors and nurses consult using the computer record. We have a practice Intranet .We have access to high quality clinical decision support from the Internet and CD-ROMs, for example Travax.

Membership and awards

We are also members of GP Care Ltd.  In May 2006 we were awarded the prestigious Quality Practice Award by the Royal College of General Practitioners and are currently working towards reaccreditation.