Training Practice

Training for General Practice at Sonning Common Health Centre

Sonning Common is a semi-rural dispensing practice with almost 10,000 patients. It has been a training practice since 1972, one of the first in the Reading area. We are committed to providing a good learning environment, and have a culture of encouraging life-long learning and improvement within the practice.  For example we have a daily mid morning meeting/break when complex cases are discussed and visit requests reviewed.  This breaks up the morning surgery, and ensure’s you get a chance to have a cup of tea and biscuit!

The current trainers are Dr Kim Emerson, Dr Nick Smith, Dr Sam Muncey and Dr Claire Webster. Other doctors in the practice, Dr Ralph Drury  and Dr Kim Wild are also actively involved in teaching medical students, FY1s or specialist GP trainees.  This allows us to accommodate several trainees at a time, which trainees like as there are opportunities for joint learning as well as peer support. It also ensures the practice team are familiar and up to date with both the administrative needs of trainees and used to supporting learners.  We provide protected debrief time after every clinic, that evolves as the placement proceeds, to help learners get the most out of every day.

We are lucky in that our patients are very used to registrars taking an active part in all aspects of their care.

The induction period allows the trainees to get to know practice systems and to spend time with all members of the multidisciplinary team (we have a great district and practice nurse team who manage a variety of long term conditions), as well as increasing ARRS roles within the practice and across the PCN.

The trainees have their protected time each week for tutorials, individual learning time and the VTS day release. In addition they have joint surgeries once a month on average. There are also in-house weekly lunch-time meetings which contribute to the ongoing team education, and we regularly organise specific topic tutorials with the surgery clinical lead for that area.

We use EMIS Web/Docman for our clinical system.  We are linked to the Reading Vocational Training Scheme for General Practice for which ST3s are released for a whole day each week and ST1s / 2s on alternate Tuesday afternoons. The training program can be found at Reading and Newbury VTS (hee.nhs.uk)

Out Of Hours (OOH) is Oxfordshire based, centre is based in Abingdon with a satellite centre in Henley. Our registrars arrange OOH training through Oxfordshire OOHs with an approved trainer in Abingdon, Witney or Henley. Some trainees who live further afield have also negotiated doing some OOH sessions closer to home.

If you would like to discuss GP training further, please contact Dr Kim Emerson or Dr Nick Smith.

Quotes from previous trainees

“A very friendly place to work, where you really feel supported and part of the team. The whole practice meets daily for coffee.”

“Dr. Kim Emerson is my inspiration as she leads by example. Being able to do clinical work, management, leadership role, and also outside work activities to keep a good balance – this is what I want to see myself be able to do comfortably. ”

“Debriefs were so useful, I got different challenges and insights from all the different doctors that helped me develop”

“Having 2 registrars is great. We shared our highs, lows and it was useful for exam prep and shared tutorials too.”

“Having other trainees in the same practice was also great as we could ask each other for help and support each other”