Meet the Team

Who are GPs?

GP (General Practitioner) They’re doctors who are generalists – though they may have special interests, they are trained to do pretty much everything. As we have 11 of them here, we have loads of skills between them.

A partner ‘owns’ the practice and is responsible for running it and takes all the responsibilities and the risks – legal and financial – and decides the policies and future strategies of the practice. Partners are the employer of all the staff and hold the contract with the NHS for providing services.

Associate GPs are employees of the partners but are experienced GPs who prefer not become partners.

We sometimes employ ‘locums’. These are GPs working with us temporarily, maybe to cover a maternity leave or sickness.
We also have doctors in training – fully qualified but under supervision while they learn the general practice ropes. Some may go into other specialities but others are committed to a future career in general practice.

A doctor will have at least 4 years’ experience after qualifying, in hospital medicine and general practice training, and an exam called the MRCGP, before they can become fully-fledged GPs.

What can they do for you?

See a GP if you have a medical or mental health problem and need advice or an examination , tests or a referral.
We rotate Duty Dr each day holds telephone, eConsult and some video consultations and triages all the ‘Urgent for today’ problems – chest infections, bad fevers, chest or abdominal pain etc and home visits and any emergencies. The other GPs hold normal appointments, had are booked on the day and half up to 3 weeks ahead.

For admin problems such as certificates or forms or blood test requests, try eConsult and avoid having to come to an appointment.

You can also request a telephone call-back from a GP who is dealing with you or knows you.

Ask a receptionist if unsure.

GPs can, of course, do most things but many of the things we get to do can be done equally well or even better by other members of the team.

This all saves valuable time for more serious things that really need a doctor’s face-to-face consideration and helps relieve pressure on our appointments for those who need them.

Who are Physician Associates?

Physician Associates, are new professionals in General Practice. They support GPs and the other clinicians in the team and can also see and manage patients of their own, holding consultations, examining, ordering tests and giving healthcare and preventative advice and management plans. They can deal with ‘acute’ (short-term) illness as well as ‘chronic’ (long-term) conditions. They are closely supervised by our GP Partners and will work within carefully defined protocols.

They cannot, at present (though this will change) sign prescriptions or order X-Rays, so will need to get a GP’s approval.

What can they do for you?

Our Physician Associate, Sameera, may see you for ‘urgent for today’ problems or for more long term condition monitoring. She will also follow up their own patients just as a doctor would, order tests and refer patients as necessary. She is trained to deal with a wide range of medical and psychological issues and works closely with the doctors and other team members.

Who are Practice Nurses?

Practice Nurses are registered nurses who undergo additional training to allow them to run their own surgeries within a practice treating minor injuries, wounds, giving healthcare advice, dealing with minor illness and help with monitoring long term conditions, carry out cervical cytology. They also lead on infection control.

What can they do for you?

See a Practice Nurse for:

• Travel vaccination and advice
• Cervical Cytology (smears)
• Contraceptive pill checks (not coils)
• BP annual reviews
• Diabetes annual reviews after seeing HCA for blood tests and foot checks if directed.
• Heart disease annual reviews
• COPD and asthma annual reviews
• Wound dressings
• Swabs for infections incl. MRSA
• Smoking cessation advice
• Weight loss advice.
• Who are Advanced Nurse Practitioners?
• ANPs are qualified nurses with additional qualifications (Masters level) to allow them to prescribe medicines and to assess and manage a range of long-term conditions such as diabetes or acute illnesses or minor injuries. They can also carry out nursing skills such as dressings and immunisations, so a hybrid role between a doctor and a Practice Nurse.
• ANPs have varied skills and no one is the same as another.
• Currently we do not have an ANP though are actively trying to recruit.
• What can they do for you?
• ANPs often specialise in one or more long term conditions such as diabetes, COPD, hypertension, – ANPs can carry out the routine monitoring and management of these conditions and will see you if any of the routine annual checks you’ve had with the Healthcare Assistant show you require further management.

Who are Health Care Assistants?

HCAs are unregistered health care professionals are trained to carry out a number of duties under the supervision of the GPs and Nurses. They have or are working towards a Care Certificate.

They also look after all our practice stocks and routine equipment checks to ensure we function efficiently.

What can they do for you?

See our HCAs for:

• New Registration health Checks
• Routine annual health checks such as BPs, foot checks, blood tests
• Flu jabs
• Smoking cessation advice
• Blood tests

Who are Phlebotomists?

Phlebotomists are trained to take blood for tests ordered by the doctor, nurse or HCA. In fact our HCAs double as phlebotomists!

What can they do for you?

The phlebotomists can only take blood ordered on a form by a clinician so please make sure you have a test request form with you or pick up a form waiting for you at reception. The phlebotomy appointments can be booked online and are in the morning until lunchtime as the courier collects blood to take to the hospital in the early afternoon.

It helps to be ready when you go for your phlebotomy appointment – take of your coat, loosen your clothing ready to expose your arm and make sure you’ve had plenty to drink from the night before and that your arms are nice and warm – it makes blood-taking a lot easier!

Who is a Practice Manager?

The Practice Manager handles all the managerial tasks involved in running a busy practice- increasingly complex regulatory, contractual and financial matters (recovering payments from the various dysfunctional NHS and Local Authority sources is a huge and tricky task yet the viability of the practice depends on it). She is responsible for HR – recruiting and employing all staff, ensuring we meet all the complex statutory obligations such as infection control, CQC, Health & Safety. She runs the building to ensure everything works and all the various maintenance requirements are met – and this is a very complex building. There is a raft of policies and procedures that she is responsible for to underpin our work and every aspect is under constant scrutiny and subject to detailed reports. She also is responsible for overseeing complaints, significant event reporting and liaising with contractors and outside bodies.

She also manages the interactions and services provided by all our clinicians.
It’s a difficult job but vital if we are to be able to serve patients safely and efficiently and survive as a viable practice.

What can she do for you?

You may only come into contact with Amanda our Practice Manager if you raise a complaint or send us a great idea. She will represent the practice at Patient Group meetings and open meetings.

The Assistant Practice Manager assists Amanda in some of these roles (post currently vacant).

Who is a Practice Administrator?

Emma and Branca assist the Practice Manager with many of her tasks and liaises with outside agencies involving patient care queries and reports. She facilitates referrals to hospital and obtaining reports and test results when they fail to arrive. She takes minutes at meetings and is generally a most helpful person.

What can she do for you?

You may come into contact with Emma and Branca if they are sorting out a problem for you or wishes to get your consent to release a report to a third party.

Who is a Workflow Administrator?

A massive amount of correspondence and data concerning patients flies around , with into and out of the practice and our Workflow Administrators ensure it is all handled safely according to clear protocols so the the right people receive it in a timely fashion. They will act on instructions in correspondence about patients by coding the information in the patient record and carrying out tasks such as requesting further appointments of tests or communicating with the patient.

What can they do for you?

You may be contacted by the Workflow Administrators to book an appointment or carry out an action requested by a hospital, clinic or a third party.

Who are Receptionists?

Receptionists have a hard job – they need to satisfy patients and at the same time all the doctors, nurses, other clinicians and managers and work within the rules and capacity and resources of the practice. They often describe themselves as the jam in the sandwich and balancing delicately on a tightrope!

Their main job is to listen to the patient and try to offer what they can to best meet their needs. Often there are misunderstandings in what we can provide and what is actually needed and what the patient thinks they need and the receptionist needs great skill , understanding and patience in handling a huge number of often complex contacts through each day. Patients are often understandably anxious and many in this part of London are not native English speakers. It’s a tough job: please treat them with respect!

What can they do for you?

Apart from booking appointments (and these are often more easily and quickly done using our on-line services) , the receptionist will explain any aspect of our service, handle Patchs submissions for admin enquiries, give some test results (easiest done online) who is best to see out of our team, (which is why we often ask for a brief idea of your problem), how to get things done in the wider health service and generally they are there to help.