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Melrose Surgery has a strong team of clinical and non-clinical staff to support its patients. The team is diverse and very reflective of the local population. The team members speak many languages, including English, Hindi, Urdu, Nepalese, Arabic, Russian, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, etc.
We offer our patients an experience to consult a multi-disciplinary team of clinicians, depending on their needs. Please choose the clinician who most suits your need.
Dr Ahmed trained as a GP in Melrose Surgery and joined as a salaried GP in 2012. He became a partner in 2014.
He offers clinical sessions on Monday mornings and afternoons, Tuesday mornings, Wednesday afternoons, Thursday afternoons, and Friday mornings mainly in Alexandra Road branch.
Dr Ahmed offers joint and soft tissue injections besides having an interest in the management of all long-term conditions. He is also passionate about organising outreach clinics in the community and group consultations.
Besides being a GP, Dr Ahmed is a GP Trainer, the Clinical Director of the New Reading Primary Care Network, and the Research Lead of the PCN.
He speaks English, Hindi, Urdu, and Russian. He understands Punjabi.
Dr Balaji joined Melrose Surgery in 2014, she became a partner in 2016.
She offers clinical sessions on Monday mornings and afternoons, Tuesday mornings and afternoons, and Thursday mornings mainly in London Road branch.
Dr Balaji is passionate about long-acting reversible contraception and has set up a service offering coils and implants not just to the patients of Melrose Surgery but also to patients from the other local surgeries. There is a team of clinicians, led by her, offering this service.
She is also very passionate about management of diabetes and leads diabetes care, with a dedicated team, in the surgery. Our diabetes outcomes have seen a significant improvement under her leadership. She is also the Clinical lead for diabetes, Berkshire West and Interim Chair for Integrated diabetes delivery Network, BOB ICS.
Dr Balaji is also a GP Appraiser and a GP Trainer as well as being a mentor for newly qualified GPs under the GP fellowship scheme.
She speaks English, Telugu, Tamil and understands Hindi.
After working as a sessional GP for a year, he joined as the third partner in 2018.
He works full days on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday mainly in London Road branch.
Dr Sharma has a special interest in Dermatology. He also does joint and soft tissue injections. He has done a lot of work with the local Nepalese community, coming from Nepal himself, and having a good understanding of their culture and health beliefs. He has done a lot of diabetes group consultations with the community, positively impacting the diabetes outcomes. He is also very passionate about organising outreach community clinics and continues to work in this area.
He is also a GP Trainer and a member of local medical committee.
He, besides speaking English, also speaks fluent Nepalese and is a huge asset for the Nepalese patients, who form a large part of our patients.
Dr Mathew joined as the fourth Partner in 2018 when Melrose surgery merged with Eldon Road surgery. He continues to be mainly based in the Alexandra Road branch.
He offers clinical sessions on Monday, starting as early as 7 am and doing two sessions, Wednesday, from 7 am until 1 pm, Thursday afternoon, and Friday morning and afternoon.
Dr Mathew is our respiratory lead. He also does joint injections. He has an extensive experience in paediatrics before he retrained to become a GP.
He speaks English, Hindi, and Malayalam.
Our salaried GPs:
1. Dr Jackie Moncur (F) – she works on Tuesdays and every third Saturday of the month. She also works as a speciality doctor in Sexual and reproductive health clinic and fits LARCs for our clinic.
2. Dr Hannah Terefenko (F) – she works on Mondays and Wednesdays. She has a special interest in LARC and aesthetics.
We have recruited 4 new doctors to meet the growing needs of our patient population
3. Dr. Tawa Olanipekun MBBS (Nigeria), FRCGP (F) - Special interest in women's health, dermatology, joint injection and minor surgery.
Languages - English, Pidgin English, Yoruba.
She works on Monday and Wednesday mornings and full days on Thursdays and Fridays and based at London Road branch.
4. Dr Pratigya Gurung (F) - She is familiar to our patients having done some locum work for us for a few months before joining our permanent team in September. She is fluent in Nepalese and Hindi. She works on Mondays and Tuesdays at London Road branch.
5. Dr. Hadia Khan (F) - We welcome back Hadia who used to be a trainee with us before. She is fluent in Urdu, Hindi and English. She works on Monday afternoons, Tuesdays and Thursdays and based at Alexandra Road branch.
Dr Madhurima Varshney(F) - She works on Wednesdays and Fridays at London Road branch. She is also interested in dermatoscopy. She can speak Hindi and English.
Melrose Surgery has a strong group of sessional GPs, who have been with it for many years, and offer regular clinical sessions. They are well qualified and very competent in dealing with not only acute health problems, but also complex and more long-term conditions. Between them, they offer a lot of same day face-to-face and telephone appointments.
Our regular sessional GPs:
1. Dr Shadab Hussain (F) - she can speak Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi.
Melrose Surgery takes a lot of pride in being a training practice. It offers training to medical graduates to develop into competent GPs. With three GP trainers, we anticipate having three GP trainees, at least, at any given time, from August 2024.
We would encourage our patients to book appointment with these trainees and contribute to their learning and development. We would like to reassure you that all the trainees are always supervised by the senior clinicians.
Our current GP trainees:
1. Dr Samer Hanna (M) - he can speak French and Arabic.
2. Dr Julia Borowicz-Klementowicz (F) - part-time trainee.
3. Dr Walaa Elsherbiny (F) - part time trainee working on Mondays and Thursdays.
1. Mrs Beverly Manton - Senior Manager
2. Mrs Samantha Lethbridge - Practice Manager
3. Mrs Maria Foster - Assistant Manager
We have a wider team of receptionists and back office staff including administrative staff in charge of coding, scanning and secretaries to help us in the smooth running of the service.
1. Asif Awan
(M) - Senior Pharmacist. Asif is well known to our patients. He is
responsible for your prescriptions and addresses all prescription queries. He also
manages patients with long term conditions and has a special interest in managing asthma
and hypertension. He is trained to do lung function test, needed in the diagnosis and
management of asthma and COPD. He also does a weekly ward round for our patients who
live in care homes.
Asif is passionate about organising and running community
outreach clinics, covid and flu vaccination clinics, working closely with Dr Sharma and
Dr Ahmed and is a part of the PCN research team.
2. Ibraheem Kadri (M)
1. Patrick Stephen (M) - he looks after our house bound and care home patients, attending to their acute health needs as well as ensuring they get a review of their long-term conditions and care plan. He also engages in end-of-life discussions with these patients. He also offers a same day clinic for acute minor ailments. He works every Monday and Thursday.
1. Lee Anne Isaacs (F) – works every Friday morning. Deals mainly with acute problems.
1. Rebecca Dixon (F) - has a nursing background for many years and helps us with LARC, smears, and acute illnesses, across the week.
We have a very competent team of physiotherapists, comprising:
1. Rohita Koppolu – works full day Wednesday.
2. Ajin Joseph Nedungattu– works full day Monday.
If you have any musculoskeletal problems, they should be your go to clinicians.
1. Shashi Shankla (F)
2. Agnieszka Bok-Devine (F)
3. Liz Williams (F)
1. Gill Sadler (F)– Health Care Assistant
2. Santan Lopis (F)– Trainee Nurse Assistant
3. Narmadha Jothinathan (F)– GP Assistant
4. Nicola Davis (F)– GP Assistant
5. Rizwana Choudhary (F) – Health Care Assistant
6. Muskan Qureshi (F) – GP Assistant
Melrose Surgery regularly hosts Physician Associate trainees and Medical Students, as a part of their training programme. They also see patients, under supervision, and we would like to request our patients to support them in their training, by booking appointments with them.