Spa Road
Melksham
Wiltshire
SN12 7EA

Tel: 0844 477 2565
Fax: 01225 896678/9

Educational Supervisor: Dr Maeve Duignan
Clinical Supervisor: Dr Sally Rosser

Website: www.giffordssurgery.co.uk

Giffords is a long established, well organised Practice, with 14,000 patients founded in 1947 by the joining together of 3 single handed practices – Drs Spence, Keir & Campbell. The practice strives to provide a patient focused service. We work from a modern purpose built surgery which we moved into in August 2000. The surgery is situated in the market town next to the community hospital which provides X ray facilities, physiotherapy, OT and other out patient clinics. We have the Health Visitor Team based in the surgery, and the Midwife runs clinics two days a week from the surgery. Our district Nursing Team is based at the community hospital and we have close working relations with them. We also host counsellors from Wiltshire CMHT & Retinal Screening from RUH.

We run an open list system, patients are registered with the practice and they can choose which Doctor they wish to see.

We have a high elderly population, with a lot of chronic illness and co morbidities. We see a lot of very interesting pathology! The population group is largely in Socio Economic group 3-4.

The Practice Nurses run well established chronic disease clinics. Chronic disease therefore is generally very well managed and clinics have been running very successfully for many years. This proves very popular with our patients. We have a Nurse Practitioner who was trained in house.

We tend to divide our work in the Practice into acute and non acute work. Acute illnesses are managed with a combination of Nurse Practitioner, Duty Nurse and Duty Doctor Clinics. We have approximately 40 staff members, many of whom are part time in reception, admin, nursing and medical staff. The Practice is busy, friendly and well organised with good team working ethos.

Information Technology
The practice uses EMIS PCS for its clinical system, and we have achieved accreditation as a paper-light practice. The practice team is IT literate and we have invested new technology in recent years to improve communication and workflow. For the clinicians we have introduced ICE electronic pathology requesting software with the RUH. For patients we have introduced appointment check in, online appointment booking and online repeat prescribing requests, and a text messaging reminder service. We are continually endeavouring to improve the service we offer to our patients.

Quality and Outcomes Framework
The practice works hard to achieve high QOF scores every year. Dr Sally Rosser has overall responsibility for the QOF programme in the surgery and she is assisted by the Practice Manager, the lead QOF nurse and the QOF administrator.

We have a growing patient participation group who are very keen to help the practice celebrate good practice and improve services where needed. We recently had a very successful open day supported by our PPG to promote the services offered by the practice and our PPG; this was very much appreciated by our patients. We would like to increase patient participation in the day to day running of the practice.

Training
We have a strong teaching/training ethos throughout the team which we have developed in the past few years, supported by all the clinicians and administrative staff. We have supported our current Nurse Practitioner in her degree course and our other practices nurses in obtaining all the necessary skills & qualifications in chronic disease management, as well as in house training. We also have a strong Healthcare Assistant team who have been supported to develop their skills in Ear Syringing, dressings, B12 injections and the annual flu campaign; monthly in house training is also provided to them by our nursing staff. We now have 2 trainers in the surgery – Dr Maeve Duignan for ST’s and Dr Sally Rosser for F2’s who are supported by the other GP’s in the surgery. We have a training room which is fully equipped for all our training needs including unobtrusive video equipment.

In summary:
We would like to encourage you to come and join our friendly progressive team in our modern purpose built surgery, and enjoy the benefits that our large semi-rural practice can offer you in terms of your training needs. If you would like to know more about us please take a look at our practice website.