GP Training

Although not a service directly for patients, GP training is nevertheless an important part of what we do.

In addition to training GP Registrars, we have junior hospital doctors working in the surgery for four-month attachments, and we also take on medical students from St Barts and Oxford, for fortnight attachments during the year. This page is really aimed at GP Registrars, junior doctors and students who want information about Western Elms and Circuit Lane Surgeries.

Usually, a GP Registrar is based at the practice for about a year, learning ‘on the job’ what General Practice is all about, and making the transition from being a hospital doctor to a community GP. The Registrar takes a full part in the running of the surgery.

Our GP Practice Trainers are Dr Sarah Haldane, Dr Ayo Ajanaku and Dr Chris Anderson. We are part of the Reading Vocational Training Scheme for GPs.

Learn more about Reading Vocational Training Scheme for GPs on the NHS England website

Dr Camilla Arthur works with a team of Foundation Year 2 (F2) Doctors who are in their second year of qualifying.

The practice has a strong ethos of training and we believe in a whole practice approach to training. All of the clinicians are involved in providing joint surgeries and tutorials.

As a training practice, we also welcome trainees from all other roles. You will come across Nurses, Physicians Associates, Pharmacists and other extended healthcare roles within in your consultations. If this is not satisfactory to you, please always ask for the learner to leave however our trainees all feel that this approach to training has benefitted them on their journey to qualifying.

The Facilities

We believe Western Elms and Circuit Lane Surgeries provides an ideal environment for training GPs. The extensive modernisation and extension of Western Elms Surgery in 1992 and further development since then in 2020, have provided the following facilities:

• A consulting room specifically for the GP Registrar(s)
• Two large and well-equipped treatment rooms, with facilities for minor surgery, family planning and physiotherapy
• A spacious open-plan reception area and waiting room
• Disabled facilities, including a disabled toilet.
• Grand staff facilities to encourage team building.
• Staff shower room so you can ride a bike in to work.

The Computer System

The practice has been computerised since 1992. Several upgrades have been necessary over the years and we now consider ourselves to be one of the more progressive practices in IT.

We have a high-speed network of 80 PCs running Windows. As a result, all consulting rooms have word-processing, spreadsheet and database facilities and twin-bin laser printers. We also have full high-speed NHSNet access from the consulting room PCs, including email and access to the internet. Where appropriate laptops are available for remote working having learned a great deal from COVID and realising family commitments are different.

Our clinical software is EMIS with electronic appointments, pathology links, a clinical record based on Read-codes and including Accurx, Ardens and ScriptSwitch (a prescribing support system), full search and report facilities, and a clinical audit module.

All the team use the computer system for recording clinical records and prescribing, and we have a summariser of medical records who enters important information into the patient’s computerised summary. As a result, we have a fairly complete electronic medical record for most patients. We have been ‘paperless’ since 2006 with scanning of all incoming documents and full access to these from within the computer record.

Partners’ Special Interests

Most GPs develop areas of special interest, to complement their basic GP work, and our GPs are no exception.

We encourage everyone to develop their skills in areas that interest them personally.

We carry out minor surgery, Family Planning, Acupuncture, sports medicine and other chronic disease specialists are available to help you learn.

Appointments and out-of-hours

GP principals no longer have a contractual obligation to provide 24-hour care for their patients (this obligation ceased by the end of 2004, when GPs became able to ‘opt-out’ of out-of-hours care). However, the experience of how GPs work out-of-hours is still a vital part of any GP Registrar’s training, and a Registrar will usually be expected to take some part in the local out-of-hours service, WestCall, sitting in with an experienced doctor in the Primary Care Centre or out on the road doing visits.

We have an on-the-day multidisciplinary team working within the practice made up of GPs, Advanced Nurse Practitioners and Pharmacists who all deal with patients on an on-the-day basis.  We have 3 duty GPs (one of whom is lead) who see patients face to face for acute problems and have a shared telephone call list; we have a full-time prescribing advanced nurse practitioner who sees patients on the day for minor illnesses such as coughs, colds, fevers, etc. Our Practice Pharmacists deal with medication queries and also deal with clinical letters and work with other staff members within the MDT.  They see patients face to face for both medication reviews and management of chronic conditions.  We now have two physiotherapists and are working on mental health therapists, and dieticians and growing our physicians associate numbers to participate in the on-the-day team as the next phase of our pilot.

Any GP outside of this team would have pre-booked appointments of 15 minutes in length to manage continuity of care for patients.  Both of the surgeries will operate on this system.

Once established in the practice, the Registrar takes a share of the on-call workload by being allocated to a different on-call doctor each week to do the emergency consultations and visits, while supervised by that doctor.

Our on-the-day team consists also of a mentor GP who is there in the capacity to support all learners and in deed those who need other support to provide the best patient care whilst receiving constant supervision if required.

Teaching

All members of the surgery are involved in the teaching of GP registrars and medical students. A programme of tutorials is arranged by the GP trainers, and the teaching is provided by the member of staff most appropriate to the topic.

The practice has video recording equipment for consultation analysis, and the Registrar is encouraged to participate in all practice matters, and to attend all meetings, both business and clinical.

We also have trainees affiliated to us in the Pharmacy, Nursing, Physicians Associate and Admin teams.

We pride ourselves on being a very friendly practice. We meet as a team daily on a number of occasions where you can network with everyone, seek support or participate in the cake baking competitions.

We have several functions across the year to encourage team building and build relations. Come with us to Path Hill for lighting fires and playing in the woods, BBQ’s at retired Partners homes, rounders in a field or an Indian meal on the Oxford Road not forgetting dressing up for the Christmas shindig.