Practice Profile

The practice has been providing health care to the town of Alton and surrounding villages for 55 years. There are eight partners (4 male and 4 female), a female Registrar,2 other female doctors, 8 nurses, 3 nursing assistants, 2 managers, 9 receptionists, 3 secretaries and 6 other office workers. All serving 13,800 patients.

Alton is a prosperous market town at the end of a commuting train line to Waterloo. There are a range of light industrial factories, a brewery, surrounding farms, near full employment and an excellent sixth form college. The population of the town has an even age range and the practice population reflects this.

List size

The doctors maintain personal lists and practice family medicine; doing 11,655 consultations and seeing 1024 casualties each year. The practice provides cover to 7 nursing or residential homes and a 48 bed community hospital.
We teach both students and qualified doctors, and run a regular education program to keep ourselves up to date with the ever changing world of NHS health care

Every day one doctor is designated "duty doctor" and is lightly booked for routine appointments, so they are available for emergencies both in and outside the health centre. The system allows the other doctors to have relatively undisturbed days, but means the duty doctor may be called out at short notice, and is usually the flustered one walking through the waiting room!
Every day one nurse is designated "triage nurse" and is available for urgent phone advice and same day appointments. They are able to manage may minor problems completely, can generate prescriptions or can refer to the duty doctor. If you are in need of immediate attention, they are likely to be the first contact.

We work from a NHS owned, purpose built health centre. When first built, in the 1970's, it reflected modern architectural tastes; red brick, flat roof, box-like. Unfortunately the landlords have avoided all but essential repairs over the last 15 years and the fabric is now showing its age. We have hopes of an early, major refurbishment.
Despite the environment, the practice aspires to the very highest standards and is currently on target to obtain all of quality points of the governments new GMS contract for the third year running.  We have specialised, nurse led clinics for many chronic diseases and actively use a computer record to organise health promotional activity.