Profile

I am married with 5 children and 10 grandchildren. I was in the RAF for 38 years working as a Ground Electronics Technician and a Software Engineer. I have played many sports over the years but my main one was Hockey, which I played at a reasonably high standard.  I am now an avid golfer and I play off a handicap of 12. I am lucky (I think) that all of my children and grandchildren live very close to me and we all get together a lot. My wife, Chrissy, and I love socialising and going on holidays, especially cruising. We also go away with all of the kids and grandkids every couple of years, which is chaotic but great fun. I love watching dramas, especially crime/thriller ones and I support Liverpool (where I was born) and Chesterfield (where I grew up) football teams.

After leaving the RAF as a Warrant Officer I decided to move into a different working arena and was lucky to be offered my current position at a GP Surgery very close to my home. The job is an extremely diverse and demanding one, requiring long hours at times but it can be very satisfying. My role is to run the Practice on a day to day basis as well as planning for the future and ensuring that our finances are in order. As a GP practice we are a private company, as all surgeries are, run by 3 GP Partners, however we only have one contract and that is to provide Primary Care Services for the NHS. Life has become extremely intense and busy over the last 8 years as we are experiencing higher demand than ever before, due to an aging population and much greater expectations from our patients, and not enough fully trained GP’s willing to work in Lincolnshire. This has resulted in GP’s working under intense pressure, leading to more of the older ones deciding to retire early, which of course just makes the problem even worse for those remaining. The staff are all female, other than me, and all of them work part time. Some have worked at the surgery for many years and all of us try very hard to do the best we can for patients as we appreciate that they do not really want to visit us and are usually very anxious when attending an appointment.

I always have a plan of action for each day before getting to work but this is normally blown out of the water within a few minutes of getting there. I have certain things that have to be done each month, such as the accounts, paying bills, the payroll, putting in the many claims for work done to the NHS, GP rotas and Reception rotas. I also have a large number of returns to complete, that are required by the NHS on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis. Obviously I do not do these tasks every day but it is essential that I find time to do them all otherwise we would not have the money to stay afloat and would possibly lose our contract. Unfortunately my day is continually interrupted by staff members needing help and advice on a large range of issues and also patients wanting to speak to me. The patients either want to complain about something they are not happy with or try and get me to agree to something the reception staff can not deal with. Most complaints can be dealt with by just advising the patient of why we do things in a certain way, but complaints regarding clinical treatment are passed to a GP to investigate. I have to attend a number of in-house meetings ranging from clinical ones to purely business ones with the partners. I also attend a  number of external meetings to discuss various issues being experienced by all practices and to find out more about the ever changing rules and NHS requirements.