Philippa Ashley

The Clifton Health Centre, York

Clifton Health Centre is owned by the York Trust, and is conveniently situated only five minutes from the York District Hospital. The practice was one of the two founding practices of the York GP Vocational Training Scheme, in 1972. In recent years most of our GP Registrars have gone on to successfully complete their MRCGP examinations.

There are just over 5,300 patients, the majority living in the local area, which is classified by the NHS as being of high socio-economic deprivation. Patients also come from the more prosperous, neighbouring Clifton Moor estate and the surrounding villages of Shipton, Skelton and Overton. Despite the difficulties associated with the ‘inner city’ nature of our caseload we have always achieved the highest rate of QoF target payments.

http://www.cliftonhealthcentre.co.uk

Clifton Health Centre waiting room

There are three partners - Stuart Calder, Philippa Ashley, and David Geddes. We also have a salaried GP, Tracy McCardle, who spent part of her training at the practice.

Stuart is one of the VTS Course Organisers.  As well as his interest in training he is an accredited Mentor and PCT Appraiser for General Practice. He is also a part-time Senior Lecturer at the University of Leeds and still plays an active role in teaching within the practice.  He has a special interest in Medical Ethics.

Philippa is the trainer in the practice having been appointed to the York VTS in 1994. She is also an accredited mentor and PCT Appraiser and undertakes the educational supervision of GP registrars and new trainers. She has a special interest in women’s issues in medicine particularly combining career and family commitments.

David has developed a special interest in Clinical Leadership and Health Care Management.  He is now working for two days each week as the Medical Director of Primary Care for the PCT. He also has a keen interest in Mental Health, having worked in the past as a Clinical Assistant in Psychiatry for some years at Bootham Park Hospital.

The practice now takes 4th Year medical students from HYMS.

The Health Centre has had some recent improvements, with the addition of a consulting room and modernisation of two further consultation rooms.

There is a high use of IT with EMIS system terminals on each desktop. Each PC has access to the practice intranet as well as the www. The practice considers itself to be essentially paper-free.

We have three practice nurses and a health care assistant. With practice-attached district nurses, health visitors and midwives, all sharing the building, there is naturally a strong emphasis on teamwork within the practice. Chiropody and Speech Therapy are also located at Clifton Health Centre.

The practice runs a full range of specialist clinics including antenatal, child health, minor surgery and diabetes, which the registrars are encouraged to attend. We also have a specialist drug addiction clinic run by our attached drug worker.  As long as prior notice is given, registrars are welcome to sit in on these sessions.

All the partners take an active part in the teaching programme; there are regular tutorials for the registrars and educational meetings for all the primary health care team in the practice.

The Practice has a particular interest in Psychiatry, having inherited a large number of psychiatric patients over recent years, following the withdrawal of many psychiatric services in the immediate practice area. There is a Counsellor and a Mental Health Support Worker working in the practice to help cope with their special needs.

David Geddes has regular Out of Hours sessions and is able to take the GP Registrar for training for the statutory number of sessions required.  The registrars work in accordance with the requirements of the York training scheme.

Further details on http://www.cliftonhealthcentre.co.uk

 

 

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