Ferrybridge Medical Centre

General information

The practice continually aims to improve its services and expand its facilities. We were awarded the Government’s Charter Mark in 1996 in recognition of high quality public services and this was renewed in 1999 and 2002. Also in 1999, we became one of the NHS Beacon Practice sites for our Integrated Nursing Team. We are an approved Family Planning training establishment. We are also a GP training practice where GP registrars spend 6 months at the practice. In addition to this, provided is practical training to medical students and minor illness training to nurses.

The practice is supported by Advanced Nurse Practitioners, Practice Nurses, Practice Business Manager and various other support staff.

We have a patient list size of approximately 9,700 serving patients in Ferrybridge, Knottingley, and Castleford, West Yorkshire and Byram, North Yorkshire. The main surgery is based at Ferrybridge (Beauforth House Clinic) with a branch surgery at Byram. The practice provides a dispensing service to 2,700 of its patients and the majority of these are from the Byram branch.

The practice employs four nurse practitioners, one specialist practitioner and three practice nurses, supported by three health care assistants to deliver a range of quality services. The team is lead and co-ordinated by Ann Bateson. Nurse practitioners and the specialist practitioner are also nurse prescribers and offer an alternative to a GP with advanced training in clinical examination, diagnosis and treatment.

The practice is fully computerised and we provide an extensive range of health promotion services. The Web Site provides a full list of services available at the practice. It also provides details of the area covered by the practice.

The majority of the patients are in social classes 3 - 5 living in villages, council estates, older areas of terraced houses and new private estates. The most deprived areas are the Warwick Estate in Knottingley and Airedale in Castleford, both areas have received SRB (Social Regeneration Budget) funding.

Doctors’ out of hours services are provided by NHSD. Patients calling the centre out of hours are either advised over the telephone, invited to attend the centre, or receive a visit from the duty doctor. The practice receives records from the on-call service by 9am each morning, listing details of any practice patients who have used the on-call service.