Tonbridge is a market town 30 miles south east of London, nestling in the Kent
countryside. It is 40 minutes from the West End and 2 hours from France (via the
channel tunnel).
The town is compact with most of our patients living within a mile or two of the surgery,
with a few in the outlying villages. Schooling facilities are excellent. The State system
still has grammar schools which maintain high scores in the various educational charts.
The northern end of the High Street is dominated by the historic Tonbridge School, for
which we are medical officers.
The practice has a long and well-documented history dating back to 1814 and has
adapted to the various changes in the Health Services over the years.
We hope to remain at the forefront of general practice in the future having worked hard
to achieve maximum QOF points. We are proactive in our approach to Practice Based
Commissioning and have submitted a business case to provide community cardiology
and dermatology services for our area.
We have 16,750 patients for six full-time and two three-quarter-time partners. We try
wherever possible, to maintain a personal list system. We operate advanced access
and patients wanting appointments are usually seen the same day, or they have the
facility to book up in advance.
We moved to our current site in 1987, having acquired a late Georgian house to
convert. The original surgery conversion won a Civic Society award. The previous
owner found the house somewhat large to live in and built a bungalow for himself in the
garden in 1983. Due to the expansion the practice has seen over a number of years,
we have also acquired this building and hence we have two surgeries on the same site.
We subsequently won the Pulse prize for the best surgery garden in the country. This
plus our location in a conservation area, makes the working environment very pleasant
indeed.
In 1998 we acquired a rural dispensing practice in the beautiful village of Penshurst
located just 5 miles from Tonbridge. Approximately 1900 of our patients are registered
at Penshurst and the main workload for this site is shared by three of our partners, with
a fourth working one session a week at Penshurst .
1
The partnership comprises of:
Alistair Howitt MB ChB MSc MRCP FRCGP DFFP (age 52), partner since 1983, has
an interest in diabetes and asthma. He is an examiner for RCGP and a GP Trainer. He
holds an MSc in General Practice.
Michael Morris MB BS MRCGP DCH DRCOG, (age 41), partner since 1996. He is a
GP trainer and also a GP appraiser. Currently working three sessions at Penshurst.
John Moore MRCGP DA DCH DRCOG, (age 43), partner since 1997. He has a
particular interest in minor surgery. He is also a Medical Officer at Tonbridge School
and a member of the Medical Officers for Schools Association.
Jenny Alton MRCGP DFFP DRCOG, (age 40), three-quarter-time partner since 1997.
She has a special interest in women’s' and children's health. Jenny is a GP trainer and
she also holds the Diploma in Dermatology from Cardiff University.
Graham Kirby MBBS MSc MRCP MRCGP, (age 45), partner since 1999. He was
formerly a GP registrar at the practice and is currently involved in running our CHD
clinic, his great interest being cardiology in which he holds an MSc. Currently also
working three sessions at Penshurst
Richard Claxton MRCPCH DRCOG MRCGP, (age 37), partner since 2002. He was
formerly a salaried assistant based in Orpington. His particular interest is paediatrics.
He is a GP trainer and course organiser and also the practice lead for Practice Based
Commissioning.
Joanna Pearson MB BS MRCGP DRCOG DFFP, (age 47), three quarter time partner
since 2004. She has a special interest in women’s and children’s health. Jo is involved
in training with FY2 doctors. She also holds the Diploma in Dermatology from Cardiff
University. Currently working two sessions at Penshurst.
Connie Burgess DMS (Health Services), the practice manager has a Post Graduate
Diploma in Health Service Management, and been in post since 1988. She is a great
asset to the practice and also has a qualification in Training and Development.
We are also fortunate enough to have four excellent practice nurses, who between
them have expertise in family planning, asthma, COPD, diabetes and coronary heart
disease. Two of our nurses have recently trained to run our clinic for patients on
anticoagulation therapy. We employ a healthcare assistant to assist with phlebotomy,
new patient checks, smoking cessation clinics etc.
We also work with the district nursing and health Visiting teams and have excellent
working relationships with both.
We devote a considerable amount of time fostering good communication within the
practice with regular partners meetings taking place each Monday lunch time and team
leaders for reception ,office and nursing, meet with the practice manager each
Thursday to discuss day to day management issues and operational needs. We aim to
have two social events each year to which all the staff are invited.
2
We have a range of in-house services including podiatry, physiotherapy, phlebotomy,
dietetics, mental health assessment and counselling.
The practice has been part of the Primary Care Collaborative. This is a national project
set up to look at meeting the targets set in the NHS plan. In primary care this is,
improving access to health professionals, meeting the targets to improve outcomes for
patients with CHD and an initiative to improve access to secondary care services.
The practice is a member of the MRC research framework and was involved in the
WISDOM trial for postmenopausal women. Further studies are research into
Hypertension, Treatment of knee pain (TOIB study) and the CHIPS study involving
children with ADS.
Original papers from the practice have appeared in the BMJ, Lancet and BJGP, and
we are quoted in the Oxford Textbook of Medicine!
We are a MASTA (Medical Advisory Service for Travellers Abroad) Travel Clinic.
Out of hours care is currently covered by the On Call Care Service.
We are fully computerised with a terminal in each consulting room and became
paperless early in 2000. We use the EMIS computer system. Currently, all
consultations, visits, prescriptions etc., are logged on the computer. The appointment
system is fully computerised for all doctors and allied professionals seeing patients in
the surgery. Our secretarial staff are very efficient, which ensures that we always
achieve top targets for cytology and immunisations. We are connected to NHS Net.
The practice uses PRIMIS to test the quality of data held, and ensure the correct READ
coding of data within practice.
For further information please visit our website at www.warders.co.uk. If there is
anything you would like to discuss please do not hesitate to contact Connie Burgess in
the first instance. We welcome requests for informal visits to look round. We appreciate
that candidates applying from distant parts of the country may find it difficult to come
twice. For such candidates it would be possible to combine the practice visit and
interview on the same day.
If you would like to apply for the post please confirm your intention in writing sending
your CV with the names of three referees.
3