22.8.22
We’re pleased to share some team news with you all.
Dr Jeff Scott, who has been working at the Practice for the last year during his final year of his specialist GP training, will now join the Practice on a permanent basis.
Dr Richard Fairclough, GP Partner at the Practice said: “As a training Practice, many of our GPs dedicate time to supporting Scotland’s GPs of the future. This is such valuable work, especially at this time when GPs nationally are in short supply.”
“It’s always great news when a GP decides to come and work in any community, but this is especially the case when a doctor who has come to train with us then joins the team on a long-term basis. This really speaks volumes about the strong team we’ve built here at Riverside, who all work so hard together each and every day to provide high quality care to the people of Musselburgh.”
Dr Cameron Kennedy also now joins the Practice, for his third and final year of specialist GP training.
The Practice have also announced that two of their specialist practitioners have successfully gained their independent prescribing qualifications. Specialist paramedic Tracy and nurse practitioner Sarah both attended Queen Margaret University before getting the award, which means they’ll now be able to prescribe certain types of medications to patients.
“Tracy and Sarah are well-known to many of our patients, and I know they’ll all join us on congratulating them on their achievement,” said Dr Fairclough.
“This means that as well as assessing patients, Tracy and Sarah will now be able to prescribe appropriate medication to treat certain conditions, which will be of great benefit to patients and to our GP team too.”
The team at the Practice have recently been working with an external review team commissioned by the East Lothian Health & Social Care Partnership, who are looking at whether there are ways that patient need for primary care services in the town can be better met.
Dr Fairclough noted: “We feel there have been some improvements in access and appointment provision recently, thanks to our successful recruitment over the past 18 months and a gradual reduction in Covid impacting our staffing levels. At our busiest times, we know it’s still harder to get through to us on the phone and to book an appointment than either we or our patients would like. That’s something we’re working to improve as much as possible on an ongoing basis – as well as of course looking at any recommendations made by the review team, when they publish their report next month.”
“We continuously strive to make improvements which mean we can provide our patients with the very best care possible – and this excellent news about Dr Scott, Sarah and Tracy is a great example of that.”
