Nightingale Valley Practice - Brooklea

About the practice

Nightingale Valley’s vision is to provide a Health Centre of Excellence delivering wider health services to the community locally.

The main surgery is based at Brooklea Health Centre, with a smaller branch surgery at Riverside Surgery in St Anne’s Park. All staff can work from either surgery.

Brooklea Health Centre is in purpose-built premises where the facilities include a staff kitchen/rest area and staff toilets/showers. The building is scheduled for landlord improvements.

Riverside Surgery is a smaller surgery in a modern, purpose-built building which has ample parking.

The practice offers a broad mix of appointments. There is a daily on-call team of GPs and Prescribing Advanced Nurse Practitioners who telephone triage same day requests with the ability to book a patient in to a dedicated appointment slot with their usual GP if needed. Each GP has dedicated face-to-face and telephone slots to aid continuity. Routine appointments can be booked up to four weeks in advance.

The team works extended hours on some days and patients can see a GP between 7.00 and 19.30 and a Nurse/HCA between 7.00 and 18.30 on these days. As part of Connexus, the practice has access to a nurse-led hub that includes chronic disease management, wound care and health checks.

Nightingale Valley also holds dedicated clinics for women’s health/contraception, health checks, minor surgery, wound care, long term condition reviews and management.

As a research practice, Nightingale Valley has a dedicated team to manage those patients invited to take part in clinical trials.

Nightingale Valley is part of Connexus, a cluster of practices that includes Stockwood, Birchwood, Wells Road, Whitchurch and the Priory. Connexus are part of the South Bristol Locality.

Working environment, values and culture

The Nightingale Valley team is patient-focused and very supportive of each other. The practice mission is to listen to patients and provide a caring experience that delivers excellent patient outcomes.

The team views themselves as one team with differing skills, working together to support patients and deliver an excellent service.

As a training practice, Nightingale hosts many student placements and receives very positive feedback from trainees.

The staff turnover is low and many staff have been at Nightingale Valley for over 15 years.

The views of the whole team are sought and considered, especially around times of change.

There are several social events, both for the whole team and as smaller teams, culminating in a Christmas party in December, where everyone can let their hair down and have fun.

What we offer

Nightingale Valley welcomes opportunities for flexible and part-time working, where possible.

The practice also offers maternity, paternity and adoption leave, unpaid leave where needed, and a child care voucher scheme.

Learning and development

New members of staff can expect all the support they need when joining the Nightingale Valley team, including an individual induction scheme, a dedicated mentor and support from the whole team.

All staff benefit from an induction programme tailored to their needs and experience. This is supplemented by monthly meetings in the first few months to discuss progress and further training support.

Learning is ongoing with clinicians supported to develop their skills on a regular basis to ensure continuous improvement of services.

All clinical staff receive study leave which is paid as per their contract. As a training practice, there is always the opportunity for further in-house clinical training. The practice has dedicated lead GPs for different disciplines to support the team, together with clinical and multidisciplinary meetings.

All staff benefit from ongoing mandatory training, delivered in-house, and any additional training either provided by the LMC, an external provider or in-house, dependent on individual needs.

Staff are also supported to learn, develop and share knowledge through regular team meetings, including business meetings, multidisciplinary meetings, team meetings, clinical meetings and safeguarding meetings.

Our patients

The practice list mainly includes people of working age with a growing number of children. The team also provides care for a large number of patients requiring chronic disease management.

Most recent feedback indicates that 87% of patients would recommend Nightingale Valley to their friends and family.