A General Practitioner, also known as a GP, is your family doctor and is the main point of contact for general healthcare for NHS patients.

GPs are highly skilled doctors who support patients throughout their lives. They help you manage your health, prevent illness, assess, diagnose, treat and manage illness.

They are trained in all aspects of general medicine, including child health, mental health, adult medicine, acute medical and surgical problems, long-term conditions, eye problems, ear, nose and throat problems, and skin conditions.

GPs may arrange hospital admissions and referrals to specialists. They also work closely with other healthcare colleagues and services involved in your care.

Our multi-disciplined clinical team includes different healthcare professionals who work alongside GPs to support patient care.

These roles help patients access the right professional for their needs and support the practice to provide safe, effective and timely care.

Advanced Nurse Practitioners are registered nurses who have undertaken extra training to masters level. They provide high quality, accessible care and work closely with GPs and other members of the multi-disciplinary team.

They can assess, diagnose, initiate treatment and evaluate care. Their work may include clinical assessment, history taking, physical examination, screening for disease risk factors, ordering investigations, providing treatment plans, prescribing medicines, referring patients to other healthcare professionals and undertaking home visits.

Pharmacist practitioners are experts in medicines and their use. They support patients to take medicines safely as part of a shared decision-making process and help make sure patients receive the right medicines.

They may support patients with long-term conditions such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension, as well as patients with complex medicines, frequent monitoring needs, polypharmacy or special medicine needs.

They also work closely with GPs, hospital teams, community pharmacists, care homes and practice teams to resolve medicines issues and support safe prescribing.

Triage nurses help assess patient needs and direct patients to the most appropriate care. Practice nurses, including triage nurses, can support with long-term conditions, general minor illness, phone triage, urine infections, rashes, sore throats and eye problems.

A Physician Associate is a medical professional who supports doctors in diagnosing and managing patients.

Their responsibilities may include taking medical histories, carrying out routine examinations, analysing laboratory test results and X-rays, treating minor injuries, supporting treatment for minor illnesses, administering first aid and medication, and helping develop management plans.

Practice nurses have become significantly more skilled over recent years and now provide many services that were previously delivered by GPs.

Much of their work involves managing the care of patients with long-term conditions and running a wide range of extended service clinics in the practice.

Practice nurses may support with:

• Long-term conditions, including asthma, diabetes and blood pressure monitoring
• Cytology services
• Family planning
• Stop smoking support
• Childhood and travel vaccinations
• General minor illness
• Phone triage
• Non-urgent urine infections, rashes, sore throats and eye problems

The role of the Healthcare Assistant can vary depending on the services provided by the practice nursing team.

Healthcare Assistants often provide assistance to nurses, as well as undertaking routine tasks such as phlebotomy, chaperoning and taking patient blood pressure and weight measurements for long-term condition clinics.

Receptionists provide an important link for patients with the practice and are often your first contact point for general enquiries.

They can provide basic information on services and results and direct you to the right person depending on your health issue or query.

Receptionists make most patient appointments with GPs and nurses. They also support other important tasks, such as issuing repeat prescriptions, dealing with prescription enquiries, dealing with financial claims, managing patient records and carrying out searches and practice audits.

It is very important that you give as much information to this group of staff as possible. Without enough information, they cannot prioritise or direct your issue to the most appropriate clinician.

Receptionists work under strict confidentiality policies. Information given to them is only used for the intended purpose.