Thame Health Centre
East Street
Thame
OX9 3JZ
T: 01844 261066
Website: www.therycotepractice.co.uk/
Trainer:
Dr Merrell Vaughan
Programme Director:
Dr Alex Bates
Practice Information
Practice Location and Character- our practice is based in the market town of Thame in Oxfordshire and covers the villages in the surrounding rural area. Thame is an old market town 15 miles east of Oxford and 10 miles from Aylesbury. There are excellent links to the M40 and major cities. The practice is in a purpose-built health centre which is owned and shared by the two practices in Thame. The building has been subject to two large extensions and affords good quality accommodation including consulting rooms, treatment rooms and meeting/staff common rooms. The building has undergone a reconfiguration and refurbishment project creating additional consulting rooms and an improved reception area in 2014. In addition to the full range of practice staff we have regular clinics provided by a midwife and a counsellor. We have close links with the adult community mental health team and meet with them monthly.
The Thame Community Hospital is located next door to the practice. A purpose-built day hospital and physiotherapy department is attached. A variety of different consultants hold clinics in the hospital. Dentistry is also on site. Responsibility for medical provision at the hospital ended in 2009 when the contract was passed to a private provider, ending a very long association with the hospital.
The practice has a strong tradition of teaching and training both at under-graduate and post-graduate levels. All GPs are involved in training medical students and ST3’s and play a role in nurse training (e.g. nurse practitioner training) and graduate entry medical student teaching. We support a “patient’s as teachers” group who teach the visiting medical students.
We are a cohesive team with a strong, mutual respect for one another. This is assisted by a monthly partners meeting with an experienced counsellor.
Our key strategic principles are of collaborative working, delivering evidence-based healthcare, and encouraging the principles of the NHS and equality for all our patients. We have developed these principles in association with our excellent practice manager, Karl Savage, who joined us in Jan 2010. We will use this principles to help us develop our services locally, managing the increasing population size, as well as collaboratively with our local commissioning group. In 2011 we switched computer system from Premiere to EMIS Web.
Thame will expand over time, and plans for housing development are already before the local authorities. The town voted in favour of a “Thame Plan” which will allow the local population to have a voice in where housing is developed. The Rycote Practice would look to help provide medical services to this expanding population where appropriate, provided high quality care delivery could be maintained