History:  The practice started with two partners in the summer of 1988, and has been a training practice since 1994. We are also a designated University Teaching Practice, with medical students on attachment from St George’s Hospital Medical School.

Sites: The main surgery is a conversion and extension, in 2 phases (the last completed in the summer of 1998), of a detached house built in the early 1970s. There is a dedicated Registrar’s consulting room. The surgery is situated in north Battersea, south of the park and on the edge of the Doddington Estate, a large council estate subject to major investment and improvement in recent years. The nearest overground stations are Battersea Park and Queenstown Road stations; there is no nearby underground station. The branch surgery is a former church hall, later recording studio, on the edge of the Patmore Estate about a mile to the east, near New Covent Garden market. 

Population: List size 8,700 approx (February 2005). High annual turnover mostly accounted for by mobility of population. Broad demographic spread in terms of socio-economic grouping and ethnic origin. Many different nationalities represented, with opportunities for linguistic rehearsal.

Secondary Care: Our main hospital links are with St George’s, Tooting, Regional centre for neurosciences, cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery and genetics, the Bolingbroke Hospital, an out-post of St George’s on Wandsworth Common, and St Thomas’s Hospital downstream of us. Over the Thames are Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and the Lister Hospital, the nearest private hospital.

Primary Care Team: As well as the four partners the medical workforce consists of the GP Registrar, 4 salaried doctors. We employ a team of full and part-time Nurse Practitioners and Practice Nurses, and have attached or assigned Health Visitors, District Nurses, Physiotherapist, Counsellors and Dietitian.

Management / Administration: We are a PMS practice and part of the Wandsworth Primary Care Trust (PCT). We have a Practice Manager and full complement of Reception and administrative staff. Clinical meetings are held weekly for all the clinical staff, with educational presentations in-house or from visiting speakers. Dr Finch is also one of the joint Medical Directors for Wandsworth PCT.

Information Technology: All consultations are carried out on the EMIS computer system, with IT linkage between the two surgery sites. E-mail is used internally and externally within the PCT. Hospital pathology results are downloaded directly to patients’ computer records.

Surgery Hours: Morning surgery 9 – 11.30 a.m., evening surgery 3 – 5.30 p.m. p.m. covering until 6.30pm when on call. The branch surgery is open on weekday mornings from 9 – 11.30 a.m.  We operate the Advanced Access appointments system, offering all patients an appointment within two working days. The Registrar sees patients almost exclusively at the Austin Road site, but exposure to the Thessaly Road site is arranged during the year. Home visits are carried out after morning surgery, and as required during the hours on-call.

Out-of Hours cover: The Registrar is on call each Monday, from 12.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m and will also gain out of hours experience with the Harmoni out of hours service in keeping with the London Deanery guidelines.

GP Training: We have hosted 9 previous Registrars for all or part of their training. The excellent local half-day release course is held at St George’s Hospital every Thursday during academic terms. The registrar will usually do 7 face to face surgeries in the week, a half-day off is granted once a week, and after a period of induction and orientation, a session weekly for private study, summative assessment tasks etc. Five weeks of annual leave can be taken in the year. Whilst this is a guide to the GPR year we feel it is important to clarify the learning needs of an individual registrar by discussion early in the year and to ensure that the learning opportunities are appropriate for these needs. As a practice we enjoy teaching and consider we have benefited enormously from the registrars that have trained here.

February 2005