Other Healthcare Professionals

All the following roles are available at Maybush Medical Centre:

Pharmacist and Pharmacy Technician

Our Pharmacist and Pharmacy technician help to resolve prescription-related queries and reduce medicine waste and overuse. They also help with communication about medicine shortages by suggesting more cost effective alternatives.

Our Pharmacist is also responsible for performing annual medication reviews and updating in year changes made by the hospital. Our Pharmacists will sometimes see patients with common ailments or minor illnesses, and can prescribe relevant medication. Having a pharmacist at Maybush means that the GPs can focus their skills where they are most needed.

Paramedic

Paramedics are now becoming a more commonplace in General practice. Their background in pre-hospital care means they can assess, examine, treat and manage patients of any age with a variety of acute illnesses such as those that come on quickly like coughs and colds, to injuries such as broken bones. They can also treat and manage more serious conditions such as asthma attacks and heart attacks, and even long term chronic conditions like arthritis and diabetes.

Paramedics working in primary care have, or are undertaking, additional education at postgraduate level. This may include, but is
not limited to, routine or urgent appointments, telephone triage (assessment of urgency of illness or injury) or telephone consultations, home visits, managing long-term conditions and coordinating the care of those patients who are at end of life. Our Paramedic is capable of diagnosing, prescribing, referring to specialists, ordering tests, interpreting results and working with the patient and their family to create a care plan.

Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN)

A significant amount of time within primary care is spent on people who have mental health needs. The time that is needed to address these needs can be significant, and it is often more appropriate for the patient to see a skilled professional with training in mental health issues than other members of the team. Our CPN is able to assess and diagnose mental health problems, start medications, monitor progress, and make onward referrals for further support.

Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP)

ACPs are highly trained and experienced clinicians with the knowledge and skills to manage all aspects of patient care. ACPs have advanced qualifications (such as a Master’s degree) and significant experience to work independently without direct guidance from the GPs. Our ACP works alongside the GPs and other practice staff to provide care to both adults and children.

As well as being able to help with minor ailments, our ACP can prescribe medication, order tests, interpret results, diagnose your health problems and organise and create an appropriate treatment plan.

Link Worker (Social Prescribing)

Half of GP appointments are for non-physical and non-medical issues such as relationship breakdowns, anxiety, depressions and drug and alcohol addiction, so instead of GPs reaching for their prescription pad and prescribing unnecessary medication, they will send patients to see our social prescriber link worker, for positive health and well-being outcomes.  

This holistic approach enables social prescribers to ‘prescribe’ emotional well-being, as well as provide practical assistance to help deal with the issues that are affecting health, through techniques such as motivational interviewing, health coaching and enabling stronger connections with the local community. 

Social prescribing can include referrals to tackle loneliness, reduce blood pressure and improve mental health as an alternative to taking medication.  Our social prescribers also provide a listening ear and practical support to help you deal with a range of crises and improve your emotional well-being.  This ‘personalised care’ will encourage and empower patients to take greater control of their health, and will help them recognise their inner strength to remove the perceived barriers in making a positive behaviour change.

Why not attend one of our educational workshop on a range of well-being topics.  For more information click here.

Care Co-ordinator (CCO)

This role provides support to clinical and non-clinical staff when responding to care queries. Our CCOs are fundamental in reducing the risk of unplanned hospital admissions and reducing the length of stay in hospital where admission is necessary. They will engage on a daily basis with patients living in care homes or who are housebound. The CCOs provide extra time and expertise to support patients in preparing for, or in following-up, clinical conversations they have with primary care professionals. They work closely with the GPs and other primary care professionals to make sure that appropriate support is made available to patients and their carer’s, and ensuring that their changing needs are addressed. Their main responsibility is consulting with patients and determining their needs, developing care plans, co-ordinating patient care services, educating them about their condition, and working with the wider care team to evaluate interventions. 

Health & Well-being Coach

Our Health and wellbeing coach predominately use health coaching skills to help you make positive lifestyle changes that will help you become the healthiest, happiest version of you. Their service includes:

  • Coaching and motivating patients to identify their needs, set goals, and support them to implement a personalised health and care plan
  • Providing personalised support to ensure patients are empowered to take more control in managing their own health and wellbeing, to live independently, and to improve their health outcomes through:
    • Providing interventions such as self-management education and peer support;
    • Helping to make changes relating to diet, physical activity and exercise
    • Helping with stress, low self-esteem and low-level anxiety or depression
    • Supporting people to establish and attain goals set by the person based on what is important to them, building on goals that are important to the individual; and
    • Working with the social prescribing service to connect them to community-based activities which support their health and wellbeing

Suitable patients for the health and well-being coach would include:

  • Overweight patients
  • Newly diagnosed high blood pressure
  • Newly diagnosed diabetes patients
  • Patients with long term conditions who are struggling and need motivation

During your first consultation, our coach will find out more about you, your lifestyle, values and goals. They can also talk about anything that might be getting in the way of you achieving those goals. Your coach will help to define the next steps that you can action immediately to take you on the path towards your goal. After your initial consultation you will have further sessions which will review your progress towards your goals, set new action steps and discuss any setbacks you might have faced. Together you can plan how to work around those setbacks should they arise again in the future. At this point you will decide together if you feel you’d benefit from more sessions, or if you feel you are in a good place to “go it alone”, knowing of course you can always return to the coach in the future should you need to. You will receive a review session at six months and then at 12 months to see how you are progressing. Sessions will progress until you and your coach feel you no longer need the support of the coach.

Roles coming soon…..

Physician Associate (PA)

This is one of the newest clinical roles to assist patients in primary care. They work independently, under the supervision of the GPs, and have undertaken medical training to support the GPs in the diagnosis and management of patients. Like an ANP they will assess and diagnose patients. This role increases capacity in general practice, reduces the workload, and brings new talent to the NHS adding to the skill mix. Currently a PA is not able to legally prescribe or request x-rays and scans in their own rights, but they can ask a GP to sign a prescription or request the necessary tests.

By 2020, the Department of Health wants to see a total of 1,000 physician associates recruited to primary care roles. This is because of the potential they have to address GP shortages.