Welcome to the North East’s largest Primary Care Recruitment Agency. We have an excellent reputation for supplying GP Locums, Nurse Practitioners, Practice Nurses, Pharmacists, Paramedics, Health Care Assistants, Care Co-ordinators and Practice Admin staff to Primary Care and for ensuring that our members feel part of our ‘virtual practice’. We currently only work across the North East (Newcastle, Durham, Darlington, Sunderland, Teesside, Northumberland) so we know the area inside and out.
We began life in 2004 with two aims firstly to become a virtual practice so that our locums would feel part of a team and secondly to provide high quality, reliable and professional GP locum cover to the North East. Today we can meet a whole practice’s temporary and permanent staffing needs.
Hayley joined as an apprentice in 2012 and soon became a valuable member of our team, as she worked through her NVQ qualifications, followed by a Business Degree.
She enjoys a busy family and social life, she occasionally brings the sixth member of the Primary Locums team, Ozzy, a black cockerpoo to spend time in the office. She is a football widow and a large mug of tea is her drink of choice!
Helen worked as a staff nurse for many years, went onto work as an Assistant Practice Manager in Gateshead before joining our team, bring her practice experience to the team. She moved to a job share with Judith in July 2021.
She manages her time outside of work enjoying the garden and the Northumberland coastline. Both Helen and her husband are always to be found at every Newcastle Falcons home match. Helen enjoys both black coffee and earl grey tea, depending on the time of day.
Judith joined the team in May 2021, after having worked for several years for a local company in their customer service department. She has brought her previous Manufacturing customer service experience, adding a further dimension to the office team.
She enjoys spending time walking her black lab Max, and with friends and family. She enjoys a cup of tea, although frequently finds it a struggle to finish it whilst it is hot!
SallyAnne is from Maine in USA, so brings a very different perspective and dimension to the team. She has had previous customer service experience in very different roles in the USA and the UK which is expanding with every day that goes by.
She has a young son, who keeps her on her toes. She enjoys a black coffee and some flavoured coffees, and is a great fan of British chocolate and generously shares her sweet tooth experiences with the rest of the office team
We are reputable and professional organisation our history and reputation will confirm this claim. We thoroughly and regularly check all our Locum staff to satisfy not only the requirements of the CQC and other professional bodies, but our own checks.
You can be sure when you contact us that we will bend over backwards to help you even with a seemingly impossible task. We do on occasion deliver a miracle, but if we can’t we will have left no stone unturned.
We enjoy the mutual support and benefit that being part of a virtual team presents, our staff be they a GP or a practice nurse don’t leave us due to dissatisfaction with the service we provide usually they leave because they move to another area or country or their circumstances change but they always keep in touch and in a lot of instances come back. We have seen many staff members into marriage, parenthood and grandparenthood.
We have been working with practices and Locum staff in the NE for the last 10 years. We have built our virtual practice and reputation slowly and steadily preferring staff to join us through recommendation rather than advertising. Living and working in the area means we understand its population distribution and differences, not to mention traffic hot spots challenging start times.
Our aim is to make practice’s lives easier by helping them fill short or longer term recruitment gaps. Locum staff can often feel isolated if they work alone and daunted by the challenges presented of regularly working in a new environment, we aim to ensure any concerns, anxieties and feelings of isolation are minimised and ensure that they feel part of our team. We try and allay any fears that either practice or staff member has, it matters that all experiences connected with Primary Locums are positive.
We all go to work to earn money to live and we aim to ensure that all our Locum staff are fairly and appropriately rewarded for the work that they carry out and there is also recognition for extra responsibility and for going the extra mile. Our GPs remain masters of their own destiny and invoice practices directly if there are problems with payments we will chase them up and ensure payment is prompt.
More than ever Practices are under increasing financial pressure so we also aim to ensure that rates represent true value to the practice and that despite the current demand they are not exploited either.
We strive to get to know both staff and surgeries. Every surgery and person that we work with is unique, so we know that by taking the time to get to know what your requirements and expectations are the better the experience is for all parties. The more information we know the better we can match staff to surgeries, to ensure the best fit for all.
