Camden GP Practices

Extract from our Care Quality Commission statement of purpose, outlining Our service aims and objectives.

We aim to:

• Provide high quality world-class accessible healthcare

• Innovate solutions responsive to patient needs

• Invest in staff through structured coaching, leadership and training

• Develop systems that provide the organisation with information on patient safety, patient experience,

• clinical effectiveness, service performance and financial performance

• Communicate Health Promotion and Disease Prevention

• Ensure effective and safe prescribing

• Identify risks and implementing strategies

• Make our services accessible and convenient for all patient groups

• Ensure services are appropriate and responsive to our patient needs

• Involve patients in delivering or designing services

• Commit to continued professional development and clinical governance

• Regularly progress audits in health promotion and disease prevention

Our NHS GP practices combine the best of traditional primary care with the benefits of modern technology. We have male and female GPs at each site supported by a highly trained multi-professional team that will take care of your health.
For many people, continuity of care with the same clinician is important. For others, fast access to the practice team is a priority.
Either way, we will support you to get the best care possible.
With Dr. iQ, we are enhancing access to our practice services. There is no need to call the practice or to wait in a queue.

A range of services are available at all of our GP practices:

Keeping Healthy

We offer the full range of NHS screening and preventative care programmes such as:
Flu and Pneumococcal immunisations, Cervical smears, Breast screening, Bowel screening, NHS health checks and Shingles vaccinations. We also work closely with local weight management and healthy living programmes for both adults and children.

Long Term Conditions

We use a range of healthcare professionals to provide high quality care for all long-term conditions including Asthma, COPD, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Hypertension. We provide of mix of face-to-face and virtual consultations to ensure you get access to convenient care and are better supported to
manage your health conditions.

Contraception and Sexual Health

We provide routine and emergency contraception. Our clinicians can discuss the range of contraceptive choices available to you. We also work closely with local sexual health clinics to ensure you get the most appropriate care and treatment while our nurses provide cervical and sexual health screening.

Pregnancy

It is important that you take good care of your own health and that of your unborn baby during pregnancy.
We will refer you to a local hospital of your choice for your antenatal care, and in most cases, you can refer yourself if you wish. We provide the full range of antenatal and postnatal care, and work closely with the community midwifery team to ensure you are well looked after during your pregnancy.

Child Health

We provide the full range of childhood immunisations and work closely with health visitors to ensure child development checks are completed on time.
We deliver consultations for your child either by video or in person at one of our practices that’s close to you.

Older Adults

We work closely with Age UK to provide coordinated care and help for our older adults. We provide proactive extended health checks with structured medication reviews for vulnerable older adults to ensure we can optimize your health. Where appropriate, we also provide home visits for patients who are
housebound.

Carers

We work in close partnership with local carer groups to offer support to patients of any age who have caring responsibilities for someone who is physically ill, frail, disabled or mentally unwell. This includes parents of children with learning or physical disabilities.
We offer all carers flexible appointments, seasonal flu vaccinations and an annual carer’s health check.

Medicines Management

Our team of practice pharmacists are responsible for the management of your medication. This involves the regular checking, monitoring and prompt processing of prescription requests. Medication reviews can be carried out virtually or in person with a focus on safe, high quality prescribing.

Our clinical team are multidisciplinary – this means we have a range of highly skilled and qualified clinicians working together with our GPs to deliver high quality support for you, our patients and carers.

When you have a face-to-face or telephone appointment, this may be with one of these clinicians. If you have an urgent problem that needs to be seen on the same day, we will aim to offer you a same-day appointment with an appropriate
clinician, please be prepared to advise our admin team about your issue to help us in helping you, thank you.

If you would like a chaperone when you see the doctor or nurse, please feel free to bring someone with you, or ask at reception when making your appointment. If you attend an urgent appointment you will be asked to see whichever doctor is available.

Please help us to help you and our other patients. Our doctors are able to see several patients in the surgery in the time it takes to do a single home visit. For this reason, we ask our patients to come to the surgery where required, and we also offer video and telephone consultations where appropriate.

However, we can visit you at home if you are:

We want to see patients as quickly as possible, and the best way is often to encourage them to come to the surgery, because your GP will have access to all your medical records, including those held on computer. There are also better facilities for examining and treating patients at the surgery.

Babies and small children should be brought to the surgery where we will do our best to see them promptly. If our reception staff are made aware that your child is particularly unwell, they will do everything they can to ensure that you are not kept waiting unnecessarily to see the GP.

Transport/social problems –We cannot undertake home visits for reasons of convenience or lack of transport .We will be happy to provide you with details of local taxi firms. From experience we find that relatives, neighbours or friends are often willing to help out.

Our responsibility to you is to resolve the medical problem you have; your responsibility is to take all the reasonable steps you are able to, to enable us to do that.

Please request visits before 10am whenever possible as this allows the GP to plan their day accordingly. Late requests often lead to disruption of the appointment system and excessive waiting times for others.

A doctor/nurse will call you back on most occasions to assess your problem. This is to enable the GP to prioritise visits.

It may be that your problem can be dealt with by telephone advice, or that it would be more appropriate to send a nurse or indeed arrange a hospital attendance. It also prepares the GP to collect some information required as necessary for the visit

The GP may ask you to come to the surgery, where you will be seen as soon as possible. We would like to stress that no patient in serious and definite need of a home visit will be refused.

In the past, GPs were able to routinely follow up home visits. Sadly, pressures of time and more patients needing attention means this is usually no longer possible.

If you require an interpreter either call or come into the surgery and we will be happy to arrange the service. The service covers a large range of languages, but you must inform us at least three days before your appointment.

Private Health Insurance Claim forms, Insurance certificates for continued sickness, Travel Insurance Claim forms, Fitness to travel, Community Care application, etc

Please ask for advice from reception if you have a form that you think the doctor needs to fill in. You may be asked to leave it at reception and collect it at a later date. A charge will be made for forms that are not covered by the NHS (view our price list). Please do not ask a doctor to fill in a form or write a letter during surgery as this causes delays for other patients.

Letters regarding housing will not be written except at the formal request of the housing department or housing association. The doctors DO NOT sign passport forms or driving licence applications.

IMPORTANT: read our guidance on Letters and Reports before you book an appointment.

Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England. They make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and we encourage care services to improve.

CQC monitors, inspects and regulates services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and publish what they find to help people choose care

As an organisation we take great pride in training and developing all of our staff. We believe in nurturing our employees, supporting them to realize their potential and to be part of the success of the organisation.

We are passionate about inspiring managers and leaders who offer consistent approach, motivation and satisfaction to staff. Our Investors in People accreditation demonstrates our commitment to improvement in service delivery through development of all employees within our organisation.

Investors in People is a management framework for high performance through people, and is recognised across the world as a mark of excellence.

More about IIP.

Practice are accredited as a Teaching Practices by the School of General Practice (also known as the London Deanery). We train F2 Doctors along with final year and year 4 students.

We regularly have medical students either sitting in and observing a GP or seeing patients while being supervised by one of our GPs.

If you prefer not to have a medical student during your consultation then please speak to one of our reception staff members.

We have allocated a Named Accountable GP for all of our registered patients. New patients joining us will be advised of their Accountable GP at the point of registration. If you do not know who your named GP is, please ask a member of our reception team.

What is a ‘Named Accountable GPs’ role?

A named accountable GP takes responsibility for the coordination and delivery of all appropriate patient services required (based on the clinical judgement of the named accountable GP). Additionally, if a third party requests your GPs information, this is the GP name that you would give.

Does the requirement mean 24 hour responsibility for patients?

No. The named GP will not:

Do patients have to see the named GP when they book an appointment with the practice?

What does this mean for patients with complex healthcare need

Can patients continue to see their preferred GP if different to their named GP?

Can patients change their named GP?

We respect the public’s right to know how public services are organised and run. You can find our Publication Scheme on the Freedom of Information website.

All of our practice staff are aware of the importance of confidentiality. We train staff on all aspects of confidentiality with respect to both manual and electronic health records. We keep all your health information confidential and secure in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, and have a legal responsibility to keep confidential held about you confidential.

In accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and Access to Health Records Act, patients may request to see their medical records. Such requests should be made through the practice manager and no charge administered. No information will be released without the patient’s consent unless we are legally obliged to do so. A request by a patient, or a request by a third party who has been authorised by the patient, for access under the GDPR (and DPA 2018) is called a subject access request (SAR).

From April 2015, all GP practices are required to declare the mean earnings (i.e. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS services to patients at the practice for over six months. Alongside the mean figure, practices are required to publish the number of Full-time, Part-time and regular Locum GPs at the practice.

Kings Cross Surgery

The average pay for GPs working in Kings Cross Surgery in the last financial year was £55,254 before tax and National Insurance. This is for 3 part time GPs and 1 Locum GP who worked in the practice for more than six months.

Somers Town Medical Centre

The average pay for GPs working in Somers Town Medical Centre in the last financial year was £71,265 before tax and National Insurance. This is for 4 part time GPs and 2 Locum GPs who worked in the practice for more than six months.