The Heron practice
 The Heron Practice, named after a bird living on the local reservoir, is one of three general practices within the John Scott Health centre. Built in 1952 this was the first NHS Health Centre in London and one of the first in the country, but has been recently refurbished. The premises are pleasant and spacious and there is a designated room for the registrar with on site parking.
Our practice area is centred on the Woodberry Down Estate and extends from N4 and N16 in Hackney into adjacent parts of Haringey. This is a mixed inner city area, with a high level of deprivation. Our patients include many from ethnic minority groups including Kurdish, Turkish, Jewish, Irish, African and Cypriot. Many are also refugees or asylum seekers and most recently we have seen more arrivals from Eastern Europe and the Balkans. We enjoy our varied and interesting workload and the challenge of providing access to healthcare for people from a range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
We first became a training practice in 1997, and the whole team is keenly involved.Three partners, Laura Lyttleton, Fiona Sanders and Meena Krishnamurthy, are accreduted trainers and we have capacity for two full-time registrars.
The team comprises 6 GP Partners, a Practice Manager, a Medical secretary, Receptionists, Practice Nurses and a part time Psychotherapist. Attached staff include District Nursing Team, a Health Visitor, Midwives, Turkish Advocates and Social Workers for the Elderly. We have a strong sense of team working and are committed to creating an atmosphere of availability and personal care with an openness to communication and change.
The practice has a long standing interest in the area of mental health. We have monthly Outreach Clinics by one of the consultants from the Homerton Hospital and community care of the most severely ill patients is co-ordinated through the Multidisciplinary Locality Mental Health Team. We also have a part-time Psychotherapist and at various times have various counselling and therapy groups.
The practice uses the EMIS Computer System and is connected to the NHS Net. We are all looking forward to moving to paperless working over the next few years. For out of hours cover, we are part of the CAMIDOC Co-Op. Previous registrars have found it useful to do some practice based on-call before gaining experience in Co-Op cover later in the year.
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