Primary Care
Here we speak to Practice Manager and Practice Supervisor, Neelam Begum. In our conversation, Neelam shares what gives her joy, how she keeps practice staff happy and the most challenging part of her role.
Neelam: At Half Penny Steps Health Centre, I'm a practice supervisor and at Harrow Road surgery I'm the co-practice manager. I've been working for Half Penny for just over two years now and for the other two practices coming up to a year. I work at Lanark Medical Centre too and have done so for nearly 27 years. All in all, I've been in this field for a good 30 years.
Neelam: I guess bringing good ideas to the table that actually help practices and benefit them in facilitating smooth daily working. Health and safety as well. Obviously, staff and patients need to be happy, so I look after that aspect as well.
Neelam: A lot of the time, work can be stressful obviously, but you need to love the place where you're working. So, you've got to check in with staff. Because if you’re passionate about your work then you'll love the job. Helping patients as well can give you joy.
Neelam: The challenging part is waking up in the morning and not knowing what to expect. It could actually be something that you haven't thought of. Some things just come along which are unexpected. For example, six staff saying they're sick all on the same day for one surgery. So, you have to juggle it around somehow. With my experience I knew exactly what to do and who to place in what role in that situation. It was very challenging, but I managed. The other challenge isn’t your hours, it’s overworking. I was just telling my colleague, we might start at 10 o'clock, but our schedule actually starts early morning because you start getting messages from patients then.
“Every day is different, but I love it. It makes it exciting as well and I just want to obviously improve all the surgeries.”
Neelam: There is high demand from patients in terms of this area and the demographics. I work across the surgeries and I can tell what sort of patients expect things from you there and then. Even though you set a policy, sometimes that policy won’t work. It's just the way their mentality is that they want things straight away, right now. So, you have to deal with it in a different way to help each patient to understand.
Neelam: It's like, when you see patients and they ask for something, you need to know how they’re thinking. You need to obviously look at their history and see what you can actually give them. Some patients might say they want a medical report right now but you need to see why. Sometimes you need to just dig into their records and see why it’s urgent. You’ve got to draw that line.
Neelam: When I stepped in here, I was working with the boss. They're really great to be honest. If I ever leave this role, I would actually say I've worked for the best surgery. Round here are the best surgeries. Even though it’s stressful, they are very helpful and at the same time, the GPs are very supportive. It makes your work easier to manage. I can see they've all got this passion. They all want to improve certain things. It's just like this needs to be done, and then we address it and there's a deadline. We normally have a weekly meeting to keep everything up to date as well.
Find out how Half Penny Steps Health Centre exceeded hypertension targets in our case study.
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