THE FALKLAND SURGERY
www.falklandsurgery.co.uk
Tel. 01635 279972
Fax. 01635 277973
The Location
The Falkland Surgery is located on the southern edge of Newbury in Berkshire. Newbury is a town that is now the centre of a thriving hi-tech economy, while retaining many of the attractions of the original market town. Our Practice is currently part of the Berkshire West Primary Care Trust and Newbury District Clinical Commissioning Group with our surgery area covering all of Newbury town and much of the rural and village community to the south of Newbury.
Newbury has excellent road and rail links to the rest of the country with a good rail service to London. More locally we have a small but successful rural theatre and a town Arts Centre with a varied programme, which is augmented in May by the well-respected Newbury Spring Festival. There are excellent schools locally, and we are within easy reach of Reading, Basingstoke, Swindon and Oxford.
Doctors
There are currently eight partners. We have a wide variety of expertise within the practice.
Louise Titcomb / 8 sessionsTim Walter / 8 sessions / Trainer, Commissioning group IM&T lead
Ruth Lambert / 6 sessions / Palliative Care
Angus Tallini / 8 sessions / Commissioning Consortium Lead
Sarah Hall / 6 sessions / Palliative Care, IUCD
Leigh Williams / 8 sessions
Rob Copas / 8 sessions
Alice Devall / 6 sessions
The Practice
We moved into The Falkland Surgery on 5th July 2002 and have been delighted with our purpose built, state of the art premises. We were previously known as St. John’s Road Surgery and one of the main drivers for relocation was the need for space to become a training practice. We became a training practice in April 2003 and now have Tim Walter as trainer, and places for both F2 and GP Registrar positions. We currently have 2 trainees in post
The Surgery has 14 consulting rooms, two examination rooms, and a multi-purpose health education/meeting room. The Surgery also has a well-utilised staff rest room and a fully equipped kitchen area available to all staff. We are a non-dispensing practice with a pharmacy located adjacent to the surgery. We look after a local boarding school. We also look after Cloisters Unit next door and share care for Argyles Nursing home in town.
The list size is 14,500 and we have a higher than average elderly population.
The Surgery currently operates 10 minute appointments with a daily duty doctor for emergencies and minor illness. We provide extended hours appointments either in the early morning or the evening. Patients are encouraged to see the same doctor on each occasion, but strict personal lists are not enforced.
Premises and Equipment
Our new building has been designed to retain the best features of the old with an emphasis on welcoming patients as well as providing an excellent environment for staff. There is a dedicated trainee room, which is opposite the trainer. The Surgery is fully equipped for the disabled, including Braille signage, as well as the provision of a portable induction loop for patient use whilst on the premises.
We have a library, which also has a large “boardroom” style table around which all the GPs work, during times of the day when we are not seeing patients. It is difficult to describe to those who have not worked here, but the existence of this room, (which was a key feature carried over from St. John’s Rd Surgery), enables us to communicate on an informal basis several times a day, as well as to seek advice and share experiences. We have been reviewing adverse events around this table for many years, long before clinical governance gave it a name! The library has electronic access to journals as well as back copies of the BMJ and BJGP for those who prefer the feel of paper. Books are bought from a budget, and staff at the primary health care team meetings can all make recommendations for these.
We are fully equipped with video, integrated ECG and spirometry which links straight into the computer, defibrillator, nebulisers, “sonicaids”, etc and we have a minor ops room, which is used weekly by the GPs.
The practice is highly computerised (EMIS Web) and has the major advantage of having a partner who is particularly keen on IM&T and general practice computing in particular. Tim Walter runs the EMIS National User Group mailing list, and forum website on behalf of the Emis NUG. We have been “paper-lite” for more than 10 years and banished all the paper notes upstairs when we moved. All staff have access to the practice intranet and to the internet / NHSnet via their rooms/workstations. We are fully integrated with NPfIT projects like Choose and Book, and Stage One electronic prescribing and are leading the way to electronic pathology requests and electronic discharge letters.
West Berkshire Community Hospital
We are able to admit patients there for rehabilitation and terminal care under the auspices of GP colleagues from neighbouring practices.
Visiting consultants from Reading and Oxford come to Newbury Hospital and the opportunities for seeking informal advice enhance our relationships with these consultants.
Local Hospitals
Royal Berkshire & Battle Hospitals (Reading) / 21 milesNorth Hampshire Hospital (Basingstoke) / 17 miles
John Radcliffe Hospital (Oxford) / 32 miles
Great Western Hospital (Swindon) / 26 miles
West Berks Community Hospital / 2 miles
On occasions patients are also referred to Southampton, Winchester or the London Hospitals.
On Call
The practice does no OOH sessions though individual GPs can do personal and occasional sessions with agreement from the partnership.
Staff
We have all the staff you might expect with an active Primary Health Care Team meeting regularly. We also have IAPT Counsellors, and private Physiotherapist working in the practice. The Citizens Advice Bureau provides an outreach session based in the Surgery giving easy access to our patients for advice on social and legal problems. We encourage all staff to take on new responsibilities and have several specialist nurse run clinics for chronic diseases. Several members of our Primary Health Care Team are teachers as well, and we have a steady stream of student nurses, midwives and health visitors as well as medical students. Clinical Supervision sessions are held on a regular basis with the whole nursing team.
The premises are staffed from 0800-1830 hours Mondays to Fridays.
Newbury & District Clinical Commissioning Group
We have been active in this group since it’s development and Angus Tallini has been appointed as a Board member and Clinical Lead. Meanwhile Tim Walter is the Consortium’s IT lead. It is partly to cover for these commitments and Sue Rendel’s recent reduction in sessions that we wish to appoint a new partner.
Post Graduate Education
There are post-graduate centres at Basingstoke, Reading and Oxford.
The Newbury Medical Society comprises local GP’s and consultants and meets regularly for educational / social evenings.
Future Developments
The Surgery has a Development Plan updated periodically and a co-ordinated list of learning needs. Several of the priorities identified in the Development Plan have already been implemented with other initiatives continuing to be progressed on a rolling basis. This Practice Development Plan has been running for 5 years and is reviewed annually, along side periodic partners and staff awaydays.
We are currently using SurgeryPOD, an automated system connected to medical records to collect patient data. We were an early adopter of EmisWEB and are beginning to reap the rewards of this move. We are awaiting implementation of iPads for mobile working.
Patient Participation Group (PPG)
We have a very pro-active PPG who meet with a GP Lead and our Practice Manager on a 6 weekly basis. The PPG is involved in various surgery initiatives including fundraising to buy specific items to benefit the Patients and Doctors of the surgery. They liaise with other Patient Groups, as well as conducting patient related surveys.
For further information
Please contact Karen Heyward, our Reception Manager on 01635 279960 or email to if you require any further information about the Practice.