Caversham Practice Newsletter - Autumn 2025

Hellos and Goodbyes

Dear Caversham Patient,

Time at the Caversham is punctuated by regular occurrences that come around like the seasons in our garden. Twice a year in August & February we say goodbye to one set of Resident Doctors (previously known as Junior Doctors) and hello to a new group.

Resident Doctors are fully qualified doctors with several years’ experience in various hospital and community settings who have decided to specialise in primary care and join us to complete their training in this specialism. We welcome our new Resident intake and hope you will do the same. They make a great contribution to the Practice. The Caversham takes great pride in its teaching reputation and it’s so pleasing to see so many of our Residents join us as salaried GPs and GP Partners. In August we said, goodbye to Dr Judy Bennett who has been a partner at the surgery for 37 years and welcome to Dr Selen Dogan who completed her training with us this summer and now joins us a permanent salaried GP. Dr Dogan will be take over the care of those previously registered with Dr Bennett.

Spotlight on: Services

Vaccines prevent millions of deaths worldwide every year, they are the most effective way to protect ourselves and our children against ill health. Watch a short video on how vaccines work

Infectious disease like Measles and Whooping Cough are on the increase, please help us prevent them by having your children vaccinated. It's important that vaccines are given on time for the best protection, but if you or your child have missed a vaccine, contact us and we can help you catch up!

Flu, COVID & RSV vaccinations will start in October. Eligible people will be invited during September, to attend one of our vaccination clinics. We will run a wide range of vaccination clinics and there should be dates and times to suit everyone, including two Saturday clinics on the 11th and 18th October. For Flu all patients aged over 65 are eligible; as well as anyone who is pregnant, immunosuppressed or has a chronic illness such as diabetes. In addition, all patients aged over 75 or those with an immunosuppressed condition are eligible for RSV and COVID Vaccines. Please contact us to book an appointment, if you are eligible and haven’t yet booked a vaccination slot.

Older teenagers and young adults are at higher risk of getting meningococcal disease, so if you didn’t get your MenACWY vaccine whilst at school you can book an appointment with us now to get the vaccine and protect yourself.

New Services on Offer

Microsuction

Our PCN has launched a new Microsuction service (for earwax removal). This is running from Parliament Hill Medical Centre and is available to Caversham patients. To access the service, you need to be seen by a Clinician here and assessed as suitable. From October this service will also run at The Caversham. Learn more about the new microsuction service

Cryotherapy

The Caversham is now offering Cryotherapy (removal of skin tags and warts by freezing them).

What’s going on @ The Cav?

We have a couple of regular activities to support your health and wellbeing. Here’s a reminder and link to our regular patient groups:

Kentish Town Pedals

Kentish Town Pedals host a social bike ride, the first Saturday of every month. They meet at 10am outside The Peckwater Centre with bikes you can borrow. Learn more and sign up here

Walking Group

The Cav has a Walking Group, who meet every Wednesday at Parliament Hill Café. New walkers are always welcome; if you are interested in joining the group, then please contact us.

Listening Space Garden Group

If you enjoy being outside in nature, come and join our Listening Space Garden Group on a Monday afternoon. We grow everything in our garden, fruit, herbs, vegetables and beautiful flowers. All welcome.

Crafternoon

The Cav Crafters meet every Wednesday afternoon 2:15pm to 4pm in school term time in either the garden or the waiting room depending on what the weather is doing. Please contact us if you’d like to join.

Helping Hands

Helping Hands our informal information session runs every Wednesday 10:30am to 12:30pm. As part of this initative we now hold Digital Inclusion Sessions in partnership with Camden Council and we have a regular series of sessions set up. They are every other Wednesday 10:30am to 12:30pm. So far, we have helped approx 30 patients. You can book a 1:1 session at reception.

Patient Participation Group (PPG)

We are very proud of our active PPG. In June of this year one of our excellent co-chairs Rod Allison stood down from his role. We wanted to use this opportunity to say Thank You to Rod for his contribution to the Practice. We are lucky to have Kathy Elliot, now our sole Chair and we offer her all the support we can give. If you would like to get involved in the PPG, then please get in touch. The next PPG meeting is 28th October 11am to 12:20pm.

Learn more about the PPG

Zen Bus days

“It was a five-star day – plain and simple!”
(Caversham Patient)

We have hosted two Zen Bus days at the practice one in February and more recently in August. The Zen Bus offers bite size mind & body sessions such as yoga, sound baths and massage.

Trip to Kew Gardens

Jo Lynch, one of our Social Prescribers, organised a patient visit to Kew Gardens on their Community Day. For some people this was their first every visit to Kew.

Jo and 19 Caversham patients from our craft, walking and gardening groups and 9 Parliament Hill Medical Centre patients visited Kew and the feedback was really excellent.

“What can I say! I have had the loveliest day. Kew Gardens has now gone to the top of my repeat-visit list!”

Feedback on Garden Meeting

We hosted a Garden meeting in June – to discuss how we could utilise the garden more and what facilities we would need in there. Approx 10 people took part in the session, six patients, two people from the memory service, a Camden Anchor Trustee, staff member and an external facilitator. Following this meeting we’ve seen colleagues from the Memory Service using the garden, and because of what people said we needed, we have some new sturdy chairs which we hope will be much more comfortable for visitors to the garden.

The River of Hope Returns

The River of Hope is a local initiative to support people to engage, connect, and live healthier, happier lives through community support and participation. This will be our 4th year participating in this event. Sign up here for the River of Hope newsletter.

Get in Touch

To enquire or join any of these groups or activities please contact us.

Published: Oct 15, 2025