Our philosophy

We aspire to deliver excellence in medical practice and patient care, ensuring the clinical, professional and personal development of each team member, working with the people we serve through good communication and patient education, whilst managing human, financial and structural resources efficiently and effectively.

We try to preserve the values of traditional general practice whilst making the most of the opportunities afforded by the present GP Contract and other developments in the Health Service and in particular:

Vision

• To maintain a patient-friendly and caring environment within the Group and all its activities
• To develop an integrated team approach to the delivery of patient care and services, also to encourage a similar approach to the decision-making processes within the Group
• To provide a framework and culture that will ensure clinical, professional and personal development of both team and individual
• To provide clinical services based on population needs, and are of the highest quality with local accessibility wherever possible
• To be proactive in the delivery of health education, working in partnership with patients
• To work in partnership with Angus Community Health Partnership and NHS Tayside to support development and delivery of services which work towards the health improvement of the practice population
• To be effective and efficient in the use of available resources, to include audit and review

Values

• To deliver excellence in medical practice and clinical care by providing high quality accessible patient care within a culture of continuous improvement
• To achieve a team approach to patient care and ensuring that clinical, professional and personal development of each team member is supported and encouraged
• To work closely with the population of Carnoustie through good communication and effective patient education
• To manage efficiently human, financial and structural resources

Training Philosophy/Commitment

As a learning organisation, CMG is committed to supporting multi professional training in general practice at all levels. There are regular training attachments in Parkview Primary Care Centre within most disciplines in the primary care team and the GPs are keen to create a supportive learning culture within the extended team.

The GPs are trained and quality assured in training undergraduate, foundation and GP specialty doctors. The practice has invested the time required for individual principals to attend courses to achieve training status, to maintain the targets required to achieve training practice criteria, to submit evidence of this on a 3 yearly basis and to undergo regular reaccreditation visits.

Although one to one teaching of undergraduate medical students is delivered by all GPs, requiring approximately 4-5 hours in-surgery teaching time per week in addition to clinical workload, there is currently one GP principal who takes overall responsibility for undergraduate mentoring and assessment. This incurs an additional 2 sessions per month during the student attachments. CMG has on average 3 student attachments per year in 1 or 2 month blocks.

Postgraduate training of foundation doctors and GP Specialty trainees requires the GP trainers to attend trainers’ workshops throughout the year in addition to their personal CPD activity. There is one Foundation Supervisor and 4 approved GP Specialty trainers in the practice collectively spending approximately 25 sessions of clinical time attending workshops and training conferences per year.

CMG supports the training of one Foundation trainee for four months each year. During this block the GPs provide approximately 2 hours one to one teaching per week which includes protected tutorial time throughout the attachment and protected in-surgery teaching time during the early weeks.

Following the recent changes to the structure of GP training programmes, there are now 4 to 5 GP specialty trainees in practice in Carnoustie each year, two in the first year of their training spending 3 and 6 months in the practice respectively, one in ST2 spending 1-2 days per week in practice and two in practice for the duration of their final year. The GP trainers also have responsibility as the educational supervisor for the trainees while they are working in hospital with a requirement to complete the necessary 6 monthly reviews for these trainees. An immeasurable time is spent on a day to day basis with informal teaching and support of all these trainees as they develop their clinical skills in managing patients. Each trainee requires 2 hours formal protected one to one tutorial teaching per week, while in practice.

This training activity amounts to a significant time investment for the practice in addition to core clinical workload but CMG remain committed to medical education and the training of the future GP workforce.