The Health Service requires new health care professionals such as doctors and nurses to take over as others retire and to enable services to expand and improve. Existing staff also need to maintain and improve their skills. Training and education is therefore a very important function of the Health Service.
Watership Down Health is a GP training practice and supports doctors during their period of GP training.
The GP trainers responsible for training in the practice are Dr Kirsty Pollard and Dr Nicola Decker. GPs training with us may be registrars or foundation year doctors.
We are part of the Mid-Wessex Regional Scheme for training GPs and supporting medical and nursing teaching. We see training as an important part of everything we do at the practice. It enhances the practice by keeping us up to date with developments and we also benefit from the trainees challenging us as to “why we do what we do”.
A GP Registrar is a qualified doctor who has worked for some years in hospitals. They are invited to join us for up to 12 months to gain valuable experience in general practice. Registrars participate in some joint surgeries with other member of our clinical team, as well as holding their own surgeries when they are ready.
All our trainees are encouraged to see problems through with patients, which provides continuity of care for patients and helps with their training. They are fully involved with the practice and participate in the other practice activities such as home visits, staff meetings and urgent care.
Our GP trainers are leading the training process, but all members of the practice team get involved with the training at different times as appropriate to give registrars and the students the most varied and full training experience.
Sometimes one of our team may have a Registrar doctor, medical student or student nurse with them during consultation. When this happens, we will always ask beforehand whether you are comfortable with this, or whether you would prefer to see your doctor or nurse on their own.
Occasionally we need to make video recordings of some of the consultations between patients and the GP trainee. The videos are part of the end assessment for our trainees. We will always ask your consent prior to recording your appointment and provide you with a Video Consent Form. If you do not want your appointment to be recorded, please inform reception – this is not a problem and will not affect your consultation in any way.
If you do not mind your consultation being recorded, we are grateful to you. Improving the assessment of GPs should lead to a better service to patients.
Registrars
(Dr Pollard will provide clinical mentorship)
Registrars are doctors who have worked in hospital for at least 3 years since qualification and are required to work for one year/18 months as a GP in a surgery in order to be fully qualified as a GP.
Foundation year 2 doctor
(Dr Decker will provide clinical mentorship)
Foundation year 2 Doctors have spent at least a year working in hospital after they qualified from medical school. They spend a four-month period in general practice as well as gaining hospital experience before becoming fully registered as a doctor.
Medical students
We welcome medical students who are gaining experience of general practice as part of their university training. They are not yet qualified doctors but work, under supervision, alongside a GP and may sit in during a surgery with the patient’s consent.
Sixth form students
(over 17yrs of age and not a Watership Down Health
registered patient and/or living within our current practice boundary)
When sixth form students are considering whether or not they want to study to become a doctor it is helpful if they can see how GPs and other doctor’s work. We provide this opportunity for a small number of local students by letting them see how the surgery works and by watching our doctors and nurses at work. We have a signed agreement with each student to respect patient confidentiality and they can only observe a consultation with the agreement of the patient.
Trainee nurses
We also train other health care professionals. Trainee nurses are sometimes attached to the community nursing team and always work under the supervision of fully qualified nurses.
Thank you for supporting us in training our future clinicians.