Partners
The Partners are the owners of Cardinal Medical Practice and are the signatories to the Personal Medical Services contract held with NHS England.
The Partners have ultimate responsibility for the business as defined by the Partnership Act 1890, and each takes an active role in the management and development of the practice and their employees – although day to day operational management is delegated to the General Manager and Practice Operations Manager.
All clinical staff are supervised and supported by a GP at the Practice.
Salaried GPs
Doctors who are employed by the practice.
GP Trainees
A GP Trainee (previously known as a GP Registrar) is a qualified Doctor who will become a GP through a period of training in hospital and in General Practice.
The GP training takes place over a 3 year period, the last 12 (sometimes 18) months being in General Practice. As with all trainees, they are supervised by senior GPs.
Advanced Nurse Practitioners
An Advanced Nurse Practitioner is a Registered Nurse who has undertaken additional masters level of education to increase their ability to diagnose, treat, counsel and educate patients, as well as independently prescribe for patients who have various illnesses.
Nurse Practitioners
Nurse Practitioners are registered nurses with advanced training in diagnosing and treating illness and injury.
They work alongside the doctors to provide high quality patient care.
They focus on prevention and education and can carry out physical examinations, arrange for the implementation of management plans and prescriptions to be issued to patients.
Practice Nurses
Practice Nurses provide health promotion and preventative medicine. Their appointment types include; cervical smears, child/adult immunisations and they are also involved in reviews of some long term conditions.
Healthcare Assistants
HCAs predominantly support our doctors and nurses with the following:
- Annual long term condition reviews
- ECGs
- NHS Health checks
- Dressings
Trainee Nurse Associate
The nursing associate is a generic nursing role within the NHS that bridges the gap between healthcare support workers and registered nurses, to deliver hands-on, person-centred care as part of a multidisciplinary team in a range of different health and social care settings.
Nursing associates are members of the nursing team, who have gained a Nursing Associate Foundation Degree awarded by a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) approved provider, typically involving two years of higher-level study, enabling them to perform more complex and significant tasks than a healthcare assistant but not the same scope as a registered nurse. With additional training, the role also provides a progression route into the registered nursing profession.
Physician Associate
Physician Associates are medically trained, generalist healthcare professionals, who work alongside doctors to provide medical care as an integral part of the multidisciplinary team. Physician Associates are dependent practitioners working with a dedicated medical supervisor but are able to work autonomously with support.
Paramedics / Visiting Clinicians
Paramedics/Visiting clinicians will visit patients who are acutely unwell who are registered as housebound, live in a care home, or for those who are too acutely unwell to attend the practice. They are trained to assess, diagnose and treat illness/injuries and are supported by the Duty GP who reviews all visit requests.
Practice Pharmacists
Primary Care Pharmacists play a significant part in managing medicines. They have a strategic role to focus on maximising benefit and minimising risk associated with medicines. They will carry out medication reviews, discuss alternative medications, reaction to medications, as well as discussing treatment for certain conditions. They will also carry out structured medication reviews or polypharmacy reviews for those taking a large number of medication.
Care Coordinators
Care Coordinators play an important role to proactively identify and work with patients, including the frail/elderly and those with long-term conditions, to provide coordination and navigation of care and support across health and care services, as well as reaching out to our hard to reach patients who require support or assistance.
Other Trainees
The practice is a training location for student nurses, medical students at various points in their respective training programme and other individuals gaining an introduction in to the healthcare profession.
If you are offered an appointment with a student, please be assured that their work is supervised by a fully qualified GP or Registered Nurse (as appropriate). If you’d rather not consult with a student, please advise reception/care navigator as soon as possible. We will make alternative arrangements and your care will not be affected.
You may be invited in to support our Medical Students who wish to speak to patients about certain clinical conditions. If you do not wish to take part, this will not affect the care you received.
Management Team
The practice management team are involved in managing all business aspects of the practice and work closely with the GP Partners, to make sure that the right systems are in place to provide a high quality of patient care, human resources, finance, patient safety, premises and equipment and information technology.
The team supports the GPs and other medical professionals with delivering patient services and also helps to develop extended services to enhance patient care.
Administrative teams consist of:
Admin and Private Income Team
The team are based at our Norwich Road site and deal with Patient Registrations and Deductions in addition to all Private Income, Non-NHS funded requests.
AskmyGP Triage (Sorters) Team
The team are based at our Chesterfield Drive site and will coordinate assigning requests received via Ask My GP to the clinical team and will also arrange booking appointments.
Care Navigator Team
The team are based at our Chesterfield Drive site and take calls from patients wishing to book appointments with our Nurses and Healthcare Assistants or requesting test results. The team will also support patients in booking blood tests at the Phlebotomy Clinic at Landseer Road or Ipswich Hospital, if they have not been able to do so, as well as navigating patients to commissioned services that can also provide care for our patients, such as Pharmacy First.
Clinical Rota Team
The team are based at our Chesterfield Drive site and they coordinate rotas for call our clinical staff including associate staff who work from the practice.
Coding Team
The team are based at our Deben Road site and are responsible for coding and attaching letters from patients and other NHS settings. In addition, they also deal with correspondence from external agencies dealing with our patients’ care.
Data Team
The team are based at our Norwich Road site and are responsible for coordinating our Long Term Conditions invites including those for housebound patients.
Digital Access Coordinator
Our Digital Access Coordinator works across multiple sites and will support patients with technical assistance in using Ask My GP, NHS app and SystmOnline.
Medical Secretary Team
The team are based at our Norwich Road site and will coordinate referral requests from clinicians to be sent to the appropriate secondary care team.
Prescription Clerk Team
The team are based at our Deben Road site and deal with all repeat prescription requests and liaising with our GPs if a medication review is due.
Reception Team
Working across all three sites, the team are available to take in written prescription requests, check in patients for appointments and deal with general enquiries, as well as booking appointments with the Nurses and Healthcare Assistants.