Contributor: Rebecca Leech, Assistant Practice Manager


It’s been some time since the Surgery provided an update, and this is the first since I took over as Practice Manager earlier last year. Much hard work has been going on behind the scenes and I would like to bring you up to date with what we have achieved.

The Practice went through a period of flux, with a number of familiar faces, both clinical and non-clinical, moving to pastures new and this in turn meant we had to utilise locum clinicians to ensure we continued to provide medical services for our patients. Whilst these clinicians plugged the gap, we fully appreciate that continuity of care was lost when having to use locum staff.


I am delighted to say we are now back to full staffing levels, having secured the services of two new salaried GP’s, Dr. Staliuniene, working 8 sessions/week and Dr. Kemp who is working 4 sessions/week and GP provision is further supplemented by Dr. Mehrotra, a long-term locum, who is working 6 sessions/week.


We have revived our Patient Participation Group (PPG) which are now a very pro-active and supportive group made up of volunteer patients from all corners of the Practice area and who meet on a regular 6/8-week basis. Their focus is on forging positive links with patients and the wider community, particularly the local schools, who are very much on-board with this collaboration.


Furthermore, you may be aware that we underwent our CQC Inspection back in June last year but, contrary to rumour, we have still not received our report. The Chair of our PPG emailed a complaint on behalf of the PPG, at the end of January, and an email was received with the following response:


“You may have seen articles in the media recently outlining some of the challenges CQC are facing with their technology, including issues with generating reports. There have been some recent updates that have been put in place and we are making some progress with the assessments that have been impacted. As soon as we are at the point of preparing to send a draft to the service for factual accuracy, we will let you know”.


Finally for this update, the Covid Spring Booster campaign starts on 1st April 2025 for patients aged 75 and over and those in the eligible cohorts.We have sent out messages informing patients that we will again be running clinics for patients to receive their vaccine in April, with the first date being Saturday 5th April at East Harling Surgery.


Rebecca Leech

Assistant Practice Manager