NEW PRIVATE GP AT TOP WIRRAL HOSPITAL
AIMS TO BEAT WAITING TIMES
A new Wirral-based private GP service is being launched
to offer a fast-track service to beat waiting times for
appointments. The service is piloting at Spire Murrayfield
Hospital, near Heswall, and is being headed by a West
Kirby-based member of an NHS practice.
Dr Henry Aldwinckle, 38, an experienced GP with an advanced
qualification in skin problems, will be running regular Tuesday and
Saturday private surgeries at Spire Murrayfield which has over 36,000
patients a year, with the option of extending the service.
He said: “I work in the NHS but I wanted to offer the choice of a different
service that can provide longer appointments and appointment times
outside the usual GP hours. I realise how difficult it can be for busy
working people to fit in a visit to their NHS GP on weekdays which
can mean many chronic conditions are not being seen soon enough. We
are offering appointments on Saturdays as well as Tuesdays because we
appreciate that many people find it hard to get a routine GP appointment
at a time to suit them – urgent cases will of course be seen but nonurgent appointments take longer. There would also be a more relaxed
approach, with more time allocated for appointments, allowing patients
to build a rapport and relationship with their chosen GP.”
Dr Aldwinckle, a GP at a practice in West Kirby, had been looking
for a suitable site to open a private GP practice and had approached
Spire Murrayfield because it offered an ideal solution. He added:
“Spire Murrayfield is a very highly regarded and well-equipped private
hospital and they were also looking to establish a private GP service. The
advantage here is that they offer a complete package with consultation
rooms so that patients can be seen quickly and if necessary referred on
to secondary care here at the hospital. That would mean that someone
needing a scan or blood tests could have it done the same day and the
same goes for physiotherapy and other treatments - they could even see
a consultant the same day rather than having to wait for a referral at an
NHS practice.”
Dr Aldwinckle has a post graduate diploma in practical dermatology
from Cardiff University and says that up to 15 per cent of people seen by
GPs have dermatological or skin-related problems ranging from eczema
to malignant melanomas.
Spire Murrayfield, which employs 260 staff and a team of specialist
consultants, has also invested over £1 million in its systems and
equipment in the past 12 months with a new day care centre costing
£330,000 opened in January and an £850,000 state-of-the-art MRI
Scanner, the most advanced of its kind in the area, installed last year.
Julie Watkinson, Acting Director of Spire Murrayfield Hospital, said:
“We are constantly looking to invest in and upgrade our services and
we had been looking to add our own dedicated private GP practice
so we were delighted to team up with Dr Aldwinckle. We see it as a
natural progression in our aim to offer as many services as we can to
our patients under one roof and in the case of the GP practice to offer a
flexible and speedy response as well as a high quality service. The new
day centre is proving very successful and is on target to carry out over
5,000 operations this year with the patients returning home the same
day while we have a zero infections rate in our three operating theatres.”
Dr Aldwinckle, who was born and brought up in Gayton, near Heswall,
is married with three young daughters and lives in Hoylake. He went
to Birkenhead School and, inspired by his late grandfather, Dr Thomas
Green, a Wallasey GP, trained as a doctor at Guy’s and St Thomas’s
Hospitals in London before working as a GP registrar in Wallasey and
then as a GP in West Kirby where he will continue to practice.
He said: “I very much believe in the NHS which is a national treasure
but I see this as a complimentary service which could actually take some
of the pressure off the GP services in the area.”
For more information about Spire Murrayfield Hospital including
enquiries about the new private GP service, go to
www.spirehealthcare.com/wirral
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