Meet The GPs

Hi, I’m Dr Sarah Nicholson, and I’m one of the partners here at JHP. Along with Dr Ben Davies and Dr Fiona Smith, we’re responsible for the overall running of the practice. 

This covers everything from making sure we meet our contractual obligations with the NHS and setting high standards of patient care, to recruiting staff and making sure JHP is a safe and friendly place to work or visit. And of course, we also see and treat patients. 

The three of us were Partners at The Surgery, our site at 200 Osborne Road before we merged with Holly Medical Group at No 17.  

We had hoped to mark our new practice’s first anniversary in April of this year, but the pandemic, of course, took all of our focus. Suffice to say that we know the first 12 months were not as smooth sailing as we would have liked, but that we firmly believe as Partners and as a wider practice team that we are heading in the right direction. 

Many of you have been kind enough to share your experiences with us, and we’ve had some great feedback in recent months. I want to encourage all patients to keep talking to us – to let us know when things go well, and when they don’t.  

We are all here to do a good job and give you the service you need, and your feedback helps. 

Early in the year, our Patient Participation Group let us know that patients wanted to get to know the staff at the practice better. To help, we’ve added fresh new Team pages with staff profiles, and month by month the teams have been introducing themselves to patients through our website and social media. 

This month it’s the turn of the Doctors, so please meet the GPs. 

GP Partners 

As I mentioned at the top, the three GP partners are me, Dr Ben Davies and Dr Sarah Nicholson. As well as running the practice we all provide a full range of GP services, with each of us having our own specialities. 

Our staff profiles have all the information about where we trained, where we worked before coming to Jesmond and our special interests. 

Profiles for our GPs and all other staff can be found at this link.

Salaried GPs 

Completing our GP team are our four salaried GPs. 

Many patients will know Dr Kate Sutton from the pre-merger days at No 17. Dr Sarah Louden and Dr Kavitha Ramakrishnan joined the newly-formed JHP in Spring of 2019, and Dr Katie Rinne completed the team when she joined us earlier this year. 

All 4 are fully qualified General Practitioners who are employed directly by the Practice. You can read more about their special interests and professional backgrounds on their profiles.  

A Training Practice 

We’re also a training practice, which means we play in role in helping Doctors with their training and qualifications. 

Regularly we have Juniors Doctors working at the practice as part of their Foundation years after they qualify from Medical School. Every Junior Doctor works in several different NHS settings in their Foundation years to give them a rounded experience before they begin to specialise. One of my roles at JHP is to work with our Juniors Doctors as their clinical supervisor. 

We will also have GP Registrars working with us from time to time. Registrars are fully qualified Doctors who are in the process of training to become specialist GPs. Again, Registrars work closely with our GP team to help with their training and oversee their clinical work. 

Throughout September more members of the GP Team will be sharing articles with you about our work here at the practice, so keep an eye on the website and follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all the news and updates.