Meet the Team

Practice nurses are qualified and registered nurses. They can help with health issues such as family planning, healthy living advice, blood pressure checks and dressings. The practice nurses run clinics for long-term health conditions such as asthma or diabetes, minor ailment clinics and carry out cervical smears.

Healthcare Assistants

Healthcare assistants support practice nurses with their daily work and carry out tasks such as phlebotomy (drawing blood), blood pressure measurement and new patient checks. They may act as a chaperone when a patient or doctor requests one.

Practice Management

The practice manager is involved in managing all of the business aspects of the practice such as making sure that the right systems are in place to provide a high quality of patient care, human resources, finance, patient safety, premises and equipment and information technology. The practice manager supports the GPs and other medical professionals with delivering patient services and also helps to develop extended services to enhance patient care.

Reception

Receptionists provide an important link for patients with the practice and are your initial contact point for general enquiries. They can provide basic information on services and results and direct you to the right person depending on your health issue or query. Receptionists make most of the patient appointments with the GPs and nurses.

They also perform other important tasks such as issuing repeat prescriptions and dealing with prescription enquiries, dealing with financial claims, dealing with patient records and carrying out searches and practice audits.

First Contact Physiotherapist

The role of First Contact Physiotherapists (FCPs) in Primary Care is to assess patients with soft tissue, muscle and joint pain and to decide on the most appropriate management pathway.

FCPs are physiotherapists and osteopaths with expertise in the assessment and management of Musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions.

They may also be known as Advanced Practice Physiotherapists (APP) or MSK Practitioners.

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Health & Wellbeing Coach

Work with people with one or more long term conditions such as type 2 diabetes or COPD, or with risk factors for developing a long-term condition, providing support for issues such as weight management, managing chronic pain, living with depression and anxiety.

Work with people over a number of sessions to support them to develop their knowledge, skills and confidence to become active participants in looking after their own health Skilled in coaching, communication and behavioural change skills and are able to work alongside people (individually or in groups) at their Starting point.

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Mental Health Practitioner

The role of Mental Health Practitioner (MHP) in Primary Care is to offer support, triage and consultations to patients with a diagnosis of mild to moderate depression, low-mood and mild to moderate anxiety.

Patients will be assessed by MHP through a Patient Health Questionnaire (*PHQ-9) during the triage process to assess the severity of their depression.

Patients will then be supported through the whole pathway if referred to IAPT or secondary care

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Social Prescribers

Focus on social aspects impacting on an individual’s health & well-being – wider determinants of health and address health inequalities Give people time and focus on what matters to them Use health coaching approaches in personalised care and support planning approach.

Connect people to local community support, opportunities and activities to improve their health.

Will receive referrals from outside of primary care and also self-referrals Build community partnerships with aim of increasing community capacity and developing local groups and support, including the use of volunteers (through the local voluntary sector).

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Care Coordinator

Care coordinators will play an important role within a PCN to proactively identify and work with people, including the frail/elderly and those with long-term conditions, to provide coordination and navigation of care and support across health and care services.

The care coordinator role will ensure patient health and care planning is timely, efficient, and patient-centred. The role will include responsibilities for the coordination of the patient’s journey through primary care and secondary care.

This is achieved by bringing together all the information about a person’s identified care and support needs and exploring options to meet these within a single personalised care and support plan, based on what matters to the person.

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Clinical Pharmacist

The Clinical Pharmacy (CP) team consists of remote as well as practice based pharmacists.

Remote team of Senior Prescribing Pharmacists work across the PCN identifying patients using specific criteria.

Practice based pharmacists are working as practice based ARR role focusing on needs of individual practices.

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Dietitian

The role of First Contact Dietitians (FCDs) in Primary Care is to assess, diagnose and treat dietary and nutritional problems such as gastroenterology conditions, overweight or obesity, frailty, and diabetes and to decide on the most appropriate management pathway.

FCDs are dietitians working as diagnostic clinicians at the top of their clinical scope of practice, with expertise to assess and manage undifferentiated and undiagnosed presentations.

Allowing them to assess, diagnose and treat a range of dietary and nutritional conditions.