Dr Tim Coker’s Retirement

With my wife, Grania O’Mahony, we started St Wulfstan Surgery nearly 20 yrs ago. 20 years this August in fact.

We started with 800 patients, two doctors, 1 nurse, 2 receptionists and a practice manager. 20 years on we are approaching 8000 patients, 6 doctors, 20 staff plus another 5 or so attached staff working across the local practices.

Right from the start we wanted the surgery to be different. We wanted to provide the best, the most convenient and to always say “yes” when someone wanted an appointment. We wanted to form a practice with a community feeling to it, where people felt they were involved and would be proud to work for the practice or to be a patient registered there.

Basically what we wanted was to provide a service that we ourselves would want to receive, that if someone asked me whether I would want to be a patient at this practice I would say “yes”.

Grania and I are now retiring and I wanted to say just a few things looking back over those 20 years.

It has not always been easy. At the beginning we could never take time off together, the days were long and the weekends even longer. But with time we grew. We have always focussed on taking new doctors and staff with the St Wulfstan ethos of quality of care, good access to appointments, patient involvement and good communication. 

I am pleased to be able to say I think we are leaving a practice that is in excellent hands. Drs Viswanathan and Al-Ramadani, practice manager Lindsay Ward, all the clinical staff (doctors, nurses and health care assistants) and admin and reception have been the best of colleagues and friends. Without them, and their positive support, always prepared to go the extra mile, come up with new ideas, (sometimes telling me which of our ideas are not so sensible), we could not have thrived the way we have.

So, I will be forever grateful to everyone at the practice for its success, the enjoyment and honour of working as a GP in Southam and the harmony of the surgery. 

Of course it is the patients and the local population that have made the last 20 years so worthwhile for us both. We were delighted to be graded as outstanding by the Care Quality Commission and by the patients’ involvement in our assessment.

Really the support of the patients over the many years has been tremendous. Being the local GP, looking after generations of families, with their ups and downs, their joys and sadness, is something I will always remember. It has been a job like no other and it is the patients who have literally taken us into their homes, revealed their deepest worries and given us such trust that makes being a GP such a privilege. Many people have touched our lives and there are many people I think of frequently who have given us their kindness and encouragement.

So thank you for reading this short goodbye. We are hoping to be off to Zanzibar in July to work for a local hospital there. We hope our Swahili will improve whilst we are away and we will of course be thinking of home and of you whilst we are away. I may not be called “the young doctor” anymore, but I still feel I am inside.

Written by Dr T Coker