Nurses
Practice Nurse Nicola Horrigan
Our practice nurse, Nicola Horrigan, works full time at the practice.
Nic conducts a dedicated baby immunisation clinic every Monday afternoon and offers extended evening appointments on Mondays to improve access for patients who are unable to attend during standard surgery hours due to work commitments. She works four days per week, ensuring the continued provision of accessible and efficient core services.
The Practice Nurse is primarily responsible for chronic disease management, cervical screening, childhood immunisations, and travel vaccinations. In addition, Nicola works closely with Dr Parr to support the introduction of new research opportunities and innovative approaches within primary care, contributing to the ongoing development and enhancement of patient services. Nic is also the Practice Infection Prevention and Control Lead, with responsibility for ensuring the practice maintains compliance with all relevant infection prevention, control, and governance standards. Alongside the Practice Manager, Edwina, she oversees the implementation and monitoring of policies and procedures, helping to ensure a safe environment for patients, staff, and visitors.
Treatment room services are not routinely provided by the Practice Nurse, as these are delivered through a separate community-based service.
Healthcare assistants
Healthcare assistants (HCAs) are involved in direct patient care or investigations. They do not have a medical or any nursing qualification and therefore work under the instruction of a doctor or nurse rather than on their own initiative.
The role of the healthcare assistant is an innovation in the National Health Service and there are an increasing number of such staff in many areas of healthcare including general practice. Their role is being developed to address an increasing shift of work to general practice and their duties include performing investigations requested by clinicians (usually the doctor or nurse) such as phlebotomy (blood taking), blood pressure, weight and height monitoring, urinalysis, pill checks, spirometry (testing only – not interpretation), Glucose Tolerance Testing and INR (Warfarin) fingerprick testing.
Julie Bryan
We currently have 1 HCA, Julie Bryan. She is a qualified phlebotomist and has undertaken relevant training accredited by the Royal College of Nurses to ensure that they are competent to perform the tasks they undertake. Julie also assists Nicola and the GP’s with carrying out Annual Review clinics. She delivers vaccination services to patients in accordance with GP direction and supervision
She is not a clinician and performs her role to strict protocols devised by the doctors and practice nurse. She is mentored and her performance regularly monitored and appraised by the practice nurse.
Please understand that our HCAs are only able to give advice within the boundaries of the protocols under which they operate or by producing patient information leaflets from approved websites.