Former general practitioner Filey, north Yorkshire, 1963-88 (b
1933; q Leeds 1960), d 7 September 1999. He started training
in bacteriology before reading medicine. After joining the new
group practice in Filey he was innovative and helped to move the
partnership into the first purpose built premises in the area.
He
was a great raconteur and his ebullient personality and laugh
resonated round the surgery. During the summer the practice
population quadrupled and David often went from the
practice surgery to the packed waiting room in the
ramshackle surgery in the Butlin's camp, on to the
maternity wards 15 miles away, back to the practice surgery,
and then was on call for the city of caravans and chalets on
the cliff tops. He loved to escape to his boat on the Ouse; he
was a keen Rotarian, vice chairman and honorary medical officer for
the local lifeboat, and divisional surgeon for St John Ambulance.
He leaves a wife, Asa, and two children.
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Dr David Valentine arrived in 1964.. He became a keen pilot and golfer. He retired in 2000 to focus on making jewellery and golf.
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Dr
Margaret Pawson>>>
returned from Missionary work in India in 1965 to join the Surgery. She worked
as a Trainee in the Surgery initially. She retired in 1993.
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In
the 1960s, Filey was transformed from a fishing and holiday flat core, into a
bungalow retirement town, with two large developments of single-storey estates.
The partners were busy with Midwifery at the Lloyd Hospital in Bridlington,
visiting there each day, as well as undertaking a busy 1 in 4 rota- 1 in 3
during holidays. The local Butlin's Holiday Camp (staffed by locums) and the
developing caravan camps at Reighton Sands, Primrose valley and Blue Dolphin,
would swell the local numbers from a winter population of 4,000 to nearer 50 or
60,000 at peak season.
Nurse
Spaven was the Filey District Nurse and Midwife, arriving
on her bike to deliver.
Meanwhile
, in Hunmanby Dr Craggs- Simpson was
doing his surgery in what is now the front room of the Cottage pub, before retiring
elswhere for the rest of the day.
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Dr.
Garnett replaced Dr Richardson on his retirement in 1978.
Dr.
Nunn arrived in 1984, when Dr. Hinson reduced to
part-time .
The
Surgery became a Training Practice in 1985, when Dr. Garnett became a Trainer.
Dr Phil Murphy became the first Registrar; 6ft 3 and 20 stones, he would
regularly arrive on his Honda 50 moped 5 minutes late for everything, to be
berated by the then Senior Partner, the dapper Dr Hinson.
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Medical
Research Council MRC
GPRF
The
same year, the Practice joined the Medical Research Council General Practice
Framework, undertaking the Elderly Hypertension Trial. As part of the
organisation of the Trial, a card based Age-Sex Register of the practice
population had to be established, enabling a systematic recall of patients for
preventative procedures such as blood pressure measurement & cervical
screening to be established for the first time.
Subsequent
MRC Trials have been the Thrombosis Prevention trial of low dose aspirin &
warfarin in 1990, the "killer duvets" trial of Gore-Tex covers in
aspirin, and a trial of nurse intervention in depression.
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Computers
A
computer was bought in 1986 to generate Repeat Prescriptions and to keep a
computerised Age Sex Register. Subsequently Dr Valentine grew frustrated with
the many limitations of the system, and by 1989 his Meditech cottage computing
industry was a very robust tailor-made system, running appointments ,
prescribing and recalls.
Appreciating
our dependence on Dr Valentine, we dicided to move to a commercial GP system in
1996, VAMP Vision.
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Practice
Nursing
Sr
Philippa Cunnington>>> became
our innovatory first Practice Nurse and Dispenser, to be replaced on her pregnancy by
Sister Rose Roslin, recently moved to the area from Sheffield.
<<<A
Practice Group Photo ? 1987- click on for larger view
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New
premises
By
the late 1980s, it was clear that the premises were inadequate for moder
n
General Practice. Patients waited for up to three hours with no appointment
system. The two practice vaginal speculums were washed in the one sink, along
with the coffee cups.
In
1989, the Practice moved across the road to new premises on the site of an old
toilet block next to the new Bus Station and planned new Sports Hall/
Hypermarket complex. The new premises attracted national newspapers debating
whether the weather vane on top was Father Time or The Grim Reaper. The partners all agreed
that we would never allow computers into our consulting rooms to intrude into
consultations, so the building was not wired for computers. Meanwhile, Dr.
Valentine had become increasingly dissatisfied with the limitations of our 5
inch floppy disc computer, and so was working on his own General Practice
system. Dr. Nunn became the practice's second trainer in General Practice in
1989.
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Tragedy
A
tragedy occurred in November 1991. One of the Practice Sisters, <<<Mrs. Barbara
Ross, a mother of two, was driving three of our Reception Team,
Mrs Diana Smith, Mrs Mary Norris and Mrs Pat Wood, home from an
evening
out.
Her Astra was hit
at Royal Oak level crossing by one of a succession of cars that a group of 15 year old adolescents had stolen.
Sister Ross was
killed instantly.
Mrs Smith narrowly escaped death and underwent major surgery,
subsequently spending several weeks on ITU.
Mrs Norris spent several weeks in hospital.
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Dr
Pawson retired in 1993, to be replaced by Dr
Bill Bassett>>>, a retrained ex-paratrooper. Bill loved to do his
calls by Motor-bike.
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Practice
Manager
In
1989, we realised that modern general practice needed a Practice
Manager to free the doctors up to see patients. Initially, we had our problems.
Our first Practice Manager left under a cloud after a short time. Mrs Denise
Shippey replaced her, from a Bridlington practice, where she returned to
run Fund Holding . She was
replaced in her turn by an ex British Telecom manager, who was pictured as a "scandal
expose" of allegedly "unscrupulous doctors'" practices in the Independent- all that
had happened was that we had removed some "ghost" dead and moved away
patients from our list, which the paper had incorrectly alleged were bona
fide patients who had declined smear tests.
Stability
and success finally arrived as the highly efficient Miss
Lucy May replaced him, enthusiastically running fund Holding with Dr Garnett and
Mrs Norris. She left for Australia in
1997 with Dr Peter Lines, a long term locum with a taste for local politics, to
be replaced by the wonderful Mrs. Carolyn Liddle.
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Fund
Holding
In
1993, the Surgery became "Fund Holding"; this meant we were allocated
a fund to buy care for our patients, driving up provision for our patients. We
secured the services of visiting Obstetric, Paediatric, Dietitian & Clinical
Psychologist Clinics, maintained to this day. We secured significant reductions
in Waiting times for our patients in some areas.
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Dr
Nunn took the practice's first Elective Period in 1996, traveling through Asia
with his young family to swap with Dr Paul Hendy in Napier in New Zealand. Dr
Garnett followed this in 1997 by taking a year out from the practice to develop
his growing interest in Medical Management by becoming Medical Director of a
East Riding Community Health Trust based in Beverley.
Out
of hours
In
1999, Filey joined the Scarborough Emergency Doctors' Co-Operative, a scheme
originally mooted by one of the Filey doctors in 1991; the idea had subsequently
been developed by a Scarborough doctor in 1993, but for reasons unclear at that
time, Filey were not invited to join at that time. We joined
"overnight" in 1999,and became full members as late as 2001, enabling
Filey patients to access the full benefits of the Co-Op. Before that, we had a 1
in 4 (1 in 3 during holidays) internal rota, the junior partner doing all the
Fridays, until joining Hunmanby for a 1 in 5.
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Personal
Medical Services
Fund Holding was wound down with the change of
government in the late 90s, to be replaced by Personal Medical Services (PMS),
whereby GPs are allocated a lump sum to pay for and develop patient provision.
The surgery took this up in 2002, bringing an additional doctor to patients in
the form of Dr Garcia
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Dr
Robin McIlroy MB,ChB,>>>
helped us with our Holiday Park Surgeries. He qualified in Glasgow in 1945. He went straight off to work in
the Army in the North African desert, dealing with small pox and the like, and
was a Major within two years. He worked in General Practice in York and
Australia, returning to join Dr Smith-Moorhouse in Hunmanby in 1975. He
subsequently had spells working in Saudi Arabia, Australia and the Falklands, till he
initially retired.
Sadly, he passed away in Spring of 2004- he was
still working as a locum in Scarborough until a few weeks before he died.
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