the omnia practice ^NHS

73 Yardley Green Road, Bordesley Green, Birmingham B9-5PU ( 0845 072 4618 )

Dr Neil Brown, Dr Elizabeth Nyholm, Dr Peter Thebridge, Dr Helen Walt, Dr Hunaid Rashiq, Dr Asad Sabir, Dr Kerry Boyle and Dr Haroon Rashid

The Omnia Practice at Yardley Green Medical Centre aims to provide the best possible health care for patients in a friendly and efficient environment. Our continuing development is very important to us and we welcome comments and feedback in all areas of our service.

We are a busy and progressive GP Training practice located in Bordesley Green, East Birmingham. The main objective of this website is to give information on the services provided by our practice. We hope this will be helpful to both our current patients and others who may be looking to register with us.

GP Registrars - Dr Saher Zakai

Many of you will have become familiar to Dr Saher Zakai who joined us a year ago. Saher has most successfully completed her GP Training with us and we are delighted that she is moving on to a practice in Stafford - we wish her all the very best for her future career.

The Partnership

We are delighted to announce that Dr Sunita Raghunathan and Dr Madeleine Keighley became Partners on 1 August, so expanding the Partnership to 9 doctors. Many patients will know both of these doctors well as they have been working with us for sometime – indeed Sunita was a GP Registrar with us until August 2009. Their particular interests lie in general medicine, palliative care and sexual health. Dr Raghunathan has joined the diabetic team in the practice and Dr Keighley is developing the coronary heart disease programme at Omnia. Both doctors will be participating in the provision of antenatal and postnatal care. Doctors Ahmed and Zaman will both be with Omnia as full time Registrars until August 2011.

Dr Liz Nyholm - Sabbatical from Omnia

Having joined the practice in 1984, Liz has been part of the medical team since the days when Dr Ellis was the Senior Partner. She is taking a break for 3 months from the end of August until early December and has arranged to work as a volunteer doctor in a rural hospital in Kwa Zulu, South Africa. Kwa Zulu is desperately short of doctors and the opportunity to visit and work in the hospital where she spent time as a medical student was an opportunity not to be missed. This is a beautiful part of South Africa but medical services are very limited and with the problems of infection - and particular HIV - there is a huge need for medical staff. Perhaps we are more used to South African nurses and doctors coming to the UK - Liz is attempting to reverse the trend for a short period of time! She will be back in the practice at the end of the year.

Dr Walt: Many of you will know Dr Helen Walt who has been a Partner with the practice for over 10 years. Due to family commitments, Dr Walt left the Partnership at the beginning of July. However, we are delighted that she will be returning in the Autumn to see patients on a reduced commitment.

Anna Chauhan: The practice is pleased to welcome Anna to the nursing team. She is a newly qualified nurse who will be undertaking routine nursing duties as well as becoming involved with child health vaccinations, travel health and diabetes care over the next 6 - 12 months.

Gary: Gary joined the Omnia team in early July and will be responsible for helping to maintain the building, at Yardley Green Medical Centre and the surrounding environment. He is much needed for the day to day activities involved in the running of a large medical practice.

We are delighted to welcome Dr Ahsan Ahmed and Dr Zafar Zaman to the practice. They will be with us until August 2011 .

Dr Ahmed qualified in Cardiff and is now completing the second year of his specialist general practice training. He has gained experience in public health, general medicine and has a particular interest in sexual health.

Dr Zaman returned to the UK from America where he worked for many years as a molecular biologist before gaining his medical degree from the Sackler School of Medicine in New York State. He has had a change of career focus and brings an interesting research background to our work at Omnia. Dr Zaman joins our other Registrars – Dr Saher Zakai and Dr Ahsan Ahmed. .

We are happy to let you know about our Alcohol Support, Youth Counselling and Lloyds Pharmacy - learn more at our "during opening hours" section.

At Omnia, we offer accommodation to related health service staff who provide services to residents of BEN PCT who are not registered at Omnia. These include staff form District Nursing, Health Visiting, Continence and Health Care at Home. Find out more about our associates.

We welcomed Mrs Diane Perks as Reception Manager to the senior team in February. Diane is responsible for welcoming patients to the practice at reception, organising appointments and generally ensuring that patients have a positive experience when visiting Omnia.

There have been a few changes over the last couple of months; some patients will be aware of a few new faces on the team. Belinda Wall and Alison Gillman are now familiar to many.

Louise Lydon has joined the Practice as a nurse from January'10. She used to work in the hospital setting so will take some time to settle in to General Practice. Lousie will be taking an interest in our patients with diabetes. We welcome her to the Practice and are really excited about her joining the Team.

Dr Madeleine Keighley has joined the Practice as a salaried Dr from November'09. We are delighted to have her as part of the team. Her interests are paediatrics and cardio-vascular disease prevention.

Jenni Francis has joined the Practice as our second Nurse Practitioner. She will work alongside Sue Francis and the Duty Doctor to see patient requiring urgent care. Jenny used to work as a Community Martron in South Birmingham and we are really glad that she has decided to join our team.

Mrs Juanita Sangha who joined us as Business Manager in early February has now become well known to a number of patients. She leads an experienced team with her deputy assistant manager Ann Ross giving support on reception and in managing the business. An appointment to the Reception Manager post will be made in the near future to complete this senior team. The person appointed to this important post will be responsible for welcoming patients to the practice at reception, organising appointments and generally ensuring that patients have a positive experience when visiting Omnia

The new building is now in full use with physiotherapy and chiropody fully operational from downstairs. Patients who attend the 'Sit and Wait' Surgeries are now seen in the clinical rooms at the front of Omnia which we hope will mean that your visit will be easier and quicker. Rooms 41 to 43 are used for these 'on the day' appointment surgeries - you may find it best to take a seat in the waiting area to the left of reception (more about the expansion)

Signs : We are working hard to try and finish off the signage for the new building. The chairs arrived in mid May and we hope that you will like the red and blue contrast. Screens have been hung in the waiting areas which will shortly show which clinician is running a surgery and in which part of the building. When the new signs are in place these should help you find the right persona at the right time and in the right place!

The move into the new building has meant that finally we can offer a link directly into Lloyds Pharmacy who have leased space from the practice. Lloyds will be open for 120 hours a week and provide a service up to 11pm every night of the week and weekend! Patients continue to have free choice as to which of the local pharmacies that they wish to use. (learn more)