Brookside Surgery
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Dr Bernie Choi, trainer |
Friday lunchtime meeting |
We are a fifteen-partner practice in a largely suburban area on the east side of Reading, with a list size of around 26,500 patients. To make the practice more local for patients and to operate smaller and more manageable primary health care teams, we work from three surgery buildings: one at Winnersh and two larger ones in Lower Earley - Brookside and Chalfont surgeries.
Since starting as a single-handed practice in 1977, we have grown rapidly to keep pace with the expansion of new, largely privately-owned housing on the Lower Earley estate. We serve a fairly young population, which means we have plenty of paediatrics, although we also provide quite a lot of elderly care, particularly in local nursing homes. BGP has a Christian ethos and we try to work this out in our care for our patients and staff, and in the way that we manage the practice. We have the usual attached staff working with us in the practice.
BGP is a paperless practice, operating on the IPS Vision computer medical records system. Being large, we value and work hard at communication and teamwork. We operate a strongly relational team structure and endeavour to hear all voices within the team, encouraging ownership, involvement and optimum individual development. We therefore spend a higher than average proportion of working time on team meetings and communication. We are committed to high quality patient care and are always evaluating and trying to improve our services. In spite of changes over the last few years with the new contract, we have maintained high QOF scores [1043/1050 in 2005; 998.71/1000 in 2009]. With having over 20 doctors who work at BGP, each doctor is encouraged to develop an area of interest; as such, there are not only the usual clinics such as diabetes, asthma, hypertension antenatal etc, but also expertise within the practice including managing drug problems, musculoskeletal conditions, dermatology with minor op, coil fitting, obesity management and insulin initiation. BGP is also actively engaged in developing practice based commissioning in the area, with one of the partners, Stephen Madgwick being the chair of the Wokingham practices PBC group. In the last 5 years, we have taken on 5 more partners and recruited into our management and practice nursing teams.
Patient involvement and education to develop patient confidence in the practice is a key area for the future in the face of erosion of some key values by the media. The practice is also looking to develop enhanced and other services which are clinically appropriate for patients and are sensible use of scarce NHS resources, rather than simply sign up for all possible services. There has been a huge amount of change in primary care but through it all we have maintained a strong team approach to treat these changes as challenges not threats, as articulated in our current PPDP of 2008-2010. Over the past 5 years, BGP has invited patients to become members of a "critical friends group", providing valuable feedback and suggestions for the practice; BGP has engaged with this group for the mutual benefit of the practice and patients; developments resulting from this have included providing email requests for repeat prescriptions, opening up Brookside surgery over lunchtime and communicating more openly and effectively with patients using our practice newsletter. BGP has recently revamped its website to improve the communication and care for its patients .
BGP has a long tradition of training and has been GP training since 1988; the whole practice team is committed to and takes part in GP registrar training. In addition, BGP receives medical students from Oxford University for clinical skills teaching. Other partners also supervise medical students on their GP attachments from other medical schools.
Bernie Choi is now the principal trainer at BGP, having taken over a couple of years ago from Rod Sharpe, our senior partner, who had been a trainer since 1990. He remains active in supporting and participating in registrar training and his experience is a valuable resource within the training practice.
Currently, the GP registrar training is based at the Chalfont surgery; however BGP is expanding its GP training capacity. To this end, the Brookside surgery site is currently being extended to make room for and take on another GP registrar, with the intention of Gabi Gutmann providing training at this site. Next year, we are planning to commence providing training for FY2 doctors.
The GP training ethos at BGP is to aim to initially give registrars a complete introduction to general practice and encourage them to then gradually take on a full GP's role in all practice activities and meetings. We value their input and contribution to the running of the practice and aim to provide the registrar with appropriate support and training in transitioning from being a hospital ST doctor, to eventually becoming a competent, independent general practitioner. Training plans and curricula are worked out individually between registrar and trainer for the weekly trainer-registrar tutorials. In addition to this, the registrar receives protected time, usually in term time, for topic tutorials which are provided for by the various members of the primary health care team. The registrar attends the Reading and Newbury VTS day release course, based at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.
Comments from previous Oxford Deanery Training Practice inspection reports include:
"(BGP)... is a group with a wide range of interests and skills which will
offer excellent learning opportunities to doctors in training" Aug 2003"NHS hospital doctors would be that much better if each one had witnessed and experienced the high standards of general practice that is happening in the Brookside Group. Aug 2003
There is a rich educational resource for medical education not only in the number of patients and the range of services, but also in the expertise and enthusiasm of the doctors and nurses. Bernie's commitment is full and energetic" Nov 2008
http://www.
brooksidegrouppractice.co.uk