Newsletter: March 2024

A time of change

2024 is going to be a year of significant change at Bourn, with the retirement of two of our longest-standing members. Tracey Wilson, our Practice Manager is retiring at the end of April, and Dr Mike Redwood, senior partner, will be retiring from Bourn at the end of June.

A message from Dr Mike Redwood

After being a partner at Bourn Surgery for the last 31 years, I’ve decided it’s time for me to retire at the end of June 2024. I still plan to be involved in Bourn, doing locums, or helping out with teaching.

I became a partner at Bourn in the summer of 1993, replacing the much-respected Dr David Marsden when he retired. It felt like I had big shoes to fill, especially as many patients, on first meeting me, started with the phrase “Dr Marsden was such a lovely doctor”. I joined Dr Geoff Tobin and Dr Jenny McKay at Bourn, and a year later, Dr Cynthia Lalli, who replaced Dr McKay. 

It was an exciting move for me to join the partnership. I initially trained at St Thomas’s Hospital in London, and then did junior hospital jobs in Warwick, Medway, and St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. I then moved West to do my GP training in Bath, Jersey, and Midsomer Norton (a Somerset town that sounds like there might be lots of murders, but the reality was very different to the TV show with a similar name!).

The move to Cambridge was a big change for us as a family and I was delighted that I was made to feel so welcome, not just by Geoff and the staff at the surgery, but also by the lovely patients of Bourn and the surrounding villages.

Over the years I have seen many changes in the NHS (some good, some not so good). For example, the various governments have seen fit to make several reorganisations of the local NHS structure. As soon as we got used to one system and worked out how to provide the best care for our patients, they reorganised again. The population has grown quite a bit. When I started we had about 4,500 patients. We now have over 6,500, which is a considerable rise, leading to challenges for us to work out the way to provide the highest care within the confines of NHS restrictions. But I think we manage it well.

I became a GP Trainer at the end of the last century, and have helped a large number of doctors become successful GPs (44 at the last count). Many of these are now GPs at local surgeries in Cambridge, including Bourn Surgery. A quarter of a century of training GPs is probably enough.

When Dr Tobin retired 11 years ago, I became Senior Partner. Again, very big shoes to fill. Dr Lalli and I were very lucky to have Dr Vanessa Lockyer join us as a partner, and then when Dr Cynthia Lalli decided to retire, another big loss, we were very fortunate to have Dr Francesca Frame join the partnership. Our trio was then joined by Dr Tim Sharp to complete a superb quartet. I feel blessed to have such great partners who are superb clinicians as well as being good friends.

Bourn Surgery developed a very high reputation around Cambridge, amongst other surgeries, at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, and by bodies like the CCG (now “ICB”), and I’m sure the high-quality medicine that we have become recognised for will continue with Drs Lockyer, Frame, and Sharp, in conjunction with my successor.

I will very much miss all the wonderful staff at the surgery, my fantastic patients, and of course my colleagues. I wish you and them all the best in the future and hope I will get the chance to meet some of you again over the next few years.

Tracey Wilson

Even those of you who have been registered with Bourn for many years will know how central to our practice Tracey has been. During a lifetime spent in the NHS, starting in Papworth Hospital as a Pharmacy Technician, Tracey became Practice Manager at Bourn in 1991 and hasn’t looked back. She has helped manage our practice through umpteen NHS organisational changes, two floods, multiple building extensions and the computerisation and digitisation of general practice, spending over half her lifetime working at Bourn. She has done all of this working at phenomenal speed, but with a kindness and compassion that has touched all of those she has met. Once you get past her terrifyingly efficient exterior, Tracey has a heart of gold and has given her all to Bourn Surgery.

We wish Tracey a wonderful retirement, and hope that she will frequently come in to catch up and regale us with her tales of adventures overseas!

We are delighted that Emma Britton, our current deputy Practice Manager, will take over Tracey’s role on her retirement. 

If you would like to send in a card or message to Tracey Wilson before her last day on Wednesday 24th April, or for Dr Redwood before his last day on Friday 28th June, please send this to Reception.

Published: Mar 27, 2024