About Airedale GPSTS

 

The Airedale GP STS is part of the Yorkshire Deanery and is based at Airedale District General Hospital. This is a 600 bedded hospital situated in the Aire valley mid way between Skipton and Keighley, just off the main A629 trunk road.

 

From a recreational point of view there is loads on offer. If you like walking, rock climbing, mountain biking, cycling, potholing, hang gliding or horse riding then you're spoilt for choice - the sublimely beautiful Yorkshire Dales are at your feet. There are mediaeval castles and abbeys, steam railways, old cobbled streets, the Bronte parsonage, cafes serving great tea and cakes and Egon Ronay listed restaurants.

 

If all this fresh country air is too much you can always have beer and an excellent curry in Keighley. Airedale is also an easy commute from Leeds or Bradford. The transport links are good, so the big city is never far away.

 

Is this beginning to sound like an advert? Well it is, we think it's a great place to live! In fact our registrars say:

...it's a beautiful part of the country!

 

Airedale General is a friendly hospital providing in-patient care in General Medicine, General Surgery, Orthopaedics, Urology, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Medicine for the Elderly, Psychiatric Medicine and Paediatrics. There are outpatient sessions in ENT, Ophthalmology, Dermatology, Rheumatology, Plastic Surgery, Genito-Urinary Medicine and Neurology. Most of the consultants are excellent. The nice thing about the hospital is that people talk to each other. It may sound silly but this makes the whole institution work a lot more smoothly. Typical comments from registrars:

Hospital jobs are very enjoyable - a very friendly hospital.

 

Friendly hospital consultants are approachable and generally keen to improve your knowledge of their speciality.

 

General practice in the area is generally of a very high standard. Many of the GP's working in the area have stayed on after completing the scheme here. The training practices provide experience in a wide range of different settings- from the very rural, the market town, the middle class residential town, to the engineering and textile towns that have a high ethnic population and problems with unemployment and poverty.

 

Half day release is held on Tuesday afternoons at Airedale and are co-ordinated by the course organisers. They are usually well organised and well attended. Apart from being a good social occasion to catch up with peers and swap horror stories, we actually learn things too. Everyone has the opportunity to attend throughout the whole of his or her scheme. During general practice posts you virtually always have this time protected. In the hospital posts it is a little more difficult, but the majority of the time people get to go. The registrars have a lot of say in the topics that are taught and we think they are pretty good.

 

Application must be made to the National Recruitment Office for General Practice.

If you are accepted onto the Airedale scheme you will have been offered a selection of rotas and been expected to pick the one you most want to do. These are allocated on the basis of the scores achieved during the selection process. There will be some shortened schemes for those who have prior relevant experience which has been accredited by the RCGP. All the rotas are available to view on the deanery website.

 

Airedale GP STS offers a wide variety of training. PMETB are working towards a full 3 year training scheme for all GP registrars, but for the time being we hope to offer shortened schemes for those who already have some relevant hospital experience.

 

Registrars complete up to three hospital jobs selected from Paediatrics, Medicine for the Elderly, A&E, Psychiatry and Obstetrics and Gynaecology,  and Elderly/ General Medicine.

 

Registrars may spend the first six months in General Practice, in thier ST1 or ST2 year and a year in GP in their ST3 year.You Will get to work with two different practices.

 

Airedale was one of the first in the country to develop community posts. They are popular and well regarded. They get you out of being a junior doctor clerking machine and provide experience that is more relevant to general practice. The usual format of these posts is that you spend half the week in general practice and half attending outpatient clinics, but there are variations on this theme. Posts currently available are: Community Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Community Medicine for the Elderly, and Musculoskeletal Medicine.

 

The funding of these posts in the future is in doubt and therfore they are not being offered in the 2010 recruitment round.

 

The hospital has some accommodation including married quarters. It's newly built and of higher-than-standard hospital quality. There are plenty of houses and flats to rent in the area at reasonable prices. Some surgeries even have flats to rent for registrars at bargain rates. If you're looking to buy property then you can pick up a 2 bedroom terrace for 90k, go for a modern 3 bedroom detached in the Aire valley for 170k, or purchase a traditional substantial mill-owners residence for 1.5 million in Ilkley.