Your Named Doctor
Providing a personal touch to your health care.
Named Doctor? What does that mean?
All patients registered at Ashcroft Surgery have been allocated a named doctor. You can find out who yours is by either logging online to SystmOne – our online medical system – or you can ring our reception staff who will tell you.
What’s the point of a named doctor?
In every practice there are several doctors who work there. Patients will often go and see a variety of doctors rather than sticking to one particular GP. That’s fine but the difficulty is – who will be the doctor who takes responsibility for your overall care should your health deteriorate significantly? In complex medical cases, it’s not good to have too many different doctors involved because no one takes overall responsibility (a bit like that saying ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’). So – this is where your named doctor can step in and take charge of your care with hopefully better continuity of care for you.
But I have a GP that I see regularly who knows me well. I don’t want to see my registered GP!
Don’t worry! You can carry on seeing any GP in the practice. This named GP business does not mean you have to always come in and see that doctor only. You are free to see whoever you want. So, by all means, if there is a GP who you like seeing, go see them. The whole point of the named GP is that should your medical condition ever take a sudden down turn, this named GP will take overall responsibility of keeping a check on you and provide great health care at the time when you might need it the most.