About Us

 

Find out more about the practice

The Practice

Frome Medical Practice provides primary care services to a practice population of just under 30,000 people.

We are a single site practice and a Primary Care Network in our own right.

We have received national awards for our sustainability work, and have also been nationally recognised for our outstanding Health Connections (social prescribing) programme.

We have strong relationships with our local community, and local healthcare providers, and are located next to the local community hospital.

Our Values


Kindness

We seek to be a “Kind” organisation, a place where we care for each other and for the world around us in responsible and sustainable ways.

We continue to celebrate and encourage conversations around what a kind organisation is through our partnership with the Frome Kindness Festival and the Good Heart.


Collaboration

We work towards building a culture for our staff and patients which creates a strong sense of belonging. A place where everyone feels proud to work, or proud to be a part of.

We continue to develop partnerships and seek out new ones.

These include but are not limited to:

  • Working closely with our Patient Participation Group and local community
  • Working with our neighbourhood and with neighbouring PCNs in the Mendip Integrated Health and Wellbeing group
  • Working closely with our secondary care colleagues at NHS Somerset Foundation Trust and Royal United Hospital Bath
  • Working with our Integrated Care Service (ICS)
  • Working alongside and with PCNs in Somerset, South West and Nationally
  • Further developing our relationships with the University of Bath and other academic institutions to evaluate and support the work we are doing

Learning

Learning is embedded in our culture at Frome Medical Practice in an open and interactive way. There are always between three and five trainees here at any one time, and so we are all used to learning from each other regardless of whether you are a trainer or not. Trainers really enjoy the interaction with new GPs in training, as well as learning huge amounts themselves along the way.

Alex Clark was one of our GP Registrars. Alex completed the final stages of his GP training at Frome Medical Practice and has stayed on now as an Associate GP. Here are his thoughts on the learning opportunities we provide:

"I was pleased to have the opportunity to stay on as an Associate GP. The Practice has a strong training and education ethos, with regular clinical education sessions, experienced trainers and a variety of opportunities available to develop specific interests and skills. Having a number of trainers and trainees in the Practice also helps to create a supportive culture that encourages learning from each other, which was a definite contributory factor when deciding to stay on at Frome."

Other work we undertake that relates to our 'learning' value includes: 

  • Encouraging clinical discussions to take place - both formally in meetings and informally over coffee
  • Weekly educational meetings
  • Monthly Practice meetings to review significant events and positive events, in order to improve our learning
  • Providing work experience and study placement opportunities
  • Operating as a learning centre, regularly hosting events for other organisations
  • Working in partnership with Health Connections Mendipto deliver events sharing information and learning on the Frome Model of Enhanced Primary Careand the work we are doing on social prescribing

Responsibility

Work we are doing relating to our responsibility value includes:

  • highlighting World Kindness Day within the Practice and with our partners
  • implementing the #hellomynameis...campaign
  • promoting our local parkrun
  • offering Couch to 5k groups to patients
  • offering Run, Walk and Talk Groups to patients
  • supporting a local charity each year, by selecting a Charity of the Year and working with them and our team to fundraise and highlight their work
  • made a small contribution to Avon Needs Trees, following the 2020 Green Impact for Health Conference
  • delivering services as a caring Practice
  • awarded Active Practice Charter Status - meaning we have demonstrated a commitment to actively promote physical health for all at the practice, patients and staff

Sustainability

The core purpose of Frome Medical Practice is to ‘support your health’, which includes supporting the environment in which we all live and work. Sustainability is one of the core values that we are implementing to achieve this purpose. We are committed to making changes and improvements that will help reduce our carbon footprint, as well as improving health and wellbeing of patients and our own staff. 

We have made a number of commitments to sustainability as a Practice. These are written into our Policy for Green Impact. Our focus on the NUS RCGP Green Impact Award is also an ideal opportunity to implement our core values, including sustainability.

Our key areas of focus for sustainability are:

  • Improving our energy efficiency
  • Implementing our lighting responsibility plan
  • Sourcing food and drink responsibly and avoiding use of plastic where possible
  • Reducing waste and increasing recycling
  • Promoting sustainable transport
  • Purchasing sustainably
  • Reducing our use of paper
  • Reducing prescribing
  • Implementing the NUS/RCGP Green Impact Toolkit

Visit our Sustainability page for more information

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