Colchester Specialty Training Programme for GP

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The North Hill Practice

About the practice

  We have over 13,000 patients, and 3 surgeries: a listed building on North Hill, near Colchester town centre; a purpose-built surgery in Nayland (where we dispense for most of the patients, who live within quite a large rural catchment area); and a modern building on a small council estate in West Bergholt. As well as in their buildings, the three differ greatly in the populations they serve, with a younger and much more culturally varied patient group at North Hill and a higher-than-average population of older people at Nayland, from where we also look after two large local Care Homes for the elderly.

Each surgery operates in many ways as a small practice, looking after about 4,500 patients, but the doctors and nurses enjoy being part of a large group (7 partners, 4 assistants, 2 nurse practitioners, 6 practice nurses, 2 HCAs) with plenty of chance to share good ideas and discuss problems, and a very strong central management team. Being paperless helps us to offer excellent chronic disease management and also enables one GP per day to act as duty doctor for the whole practice (working with a nurse practitioner), making normal surgeries more relaxed and predictable.

We have a strong tradition of encouraging partners to develop special medical interests; currently one is a GPwSI in substance abuse, one spends 2 days a week in Occupational Health, one runs an echocardiography service for the PCT and a fourth works as a GPwSI in ENT.

What we offer a registrar

  We have been training since 2005, enjoying it very much so far. Louisa Polak and Elmer van de Hoek qualified to become trainers by completing the Postgraduate Certificate in Medical Education, both with distinction, and David Milne is qualified as an associate trainer. All members of the team (including doctors, nurses and admin staff) are keen to be involved in teaching. As well as registrars we teach medical students from Cambridge who attend regularly; registrars may opt to be involved in this teaching, if interested. In addition to weekly tutorials and daily debriefing for the registrar, we hold fortnightly group teaching sessions attended by our assistants and as many partners as can manage, as well as practice nurses when the subject interests them.

We encourage each registrar to divide their time between 2 surgeries, so that they experience general practice in both a town centre and a village during their time with us. All partners are happy to offer tutorials in their areas of expertise, as well as taking turns debriefing at the end of surgery so that the registrar hears the varied ways in which different GPs approach common problems.

 Please phone our practice manager Carole Baldwin (01206 578070) if you would like to arrange an informal visit.