Cheers to 30 years !

Dr Alan Dow has been a Principal GP at Cottage Lane Surgery in Gamesley since 1st February 1995 and this week celebrates 30 years supporting patients in the local area.

Alan first started working for the NHS in 1983 in Wick, Scotland then a year later started at Aberdeen Medical School: Class of 84. In 1987 he came to Tameside Hospital A&E and then spent some years as a locum in General Practice.

He started at Cottage Lane Surgery in 1995 after responding to an advert in the British Medical Journal.

After joining, Alan says “With Public Health and, the then Tameside Community and Priority Services Hospital, we undertook a community-wide needs assessment and thereafter designed the services that Cottage Lane Surgery would focus on and still does to this day. Coincidentally the advert appeared just as I was about to join a Denton practice that through mergers is now the biggest practice in Tameside and Glossop!” He continued his A& E and out of hours work for some years as he really enjoyed that too.

Alan goes on to say “The Pandemic was a huge challenge for practices of all sizes but we did not close for a single day through this. Through these years the practice team has been remarkable- none less during the peak of COVID. Through the Practice becoming a Healthy Living Centre I got involved in commissioning first as a Prescribing Lead then later the Clinical Governance Lead of the Primary Care Group and Quality Lead for the Primary Care Trust, also later as Chair of Greater Manchester Clinical Standards. As Clinical Commissioning Groups were formed I became the Chair of T&G CCG and, along with Tameside MBC, the Chair of the Integrated Health and Social Care Single Commission. I became a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners with various supporting focussed certifications around reproductive healthcare, immediate medical care and substance misuse and was in the first wave of certification for Substance Misuse in England and something I continue to do, on behalf of all Glossop practices today.”

“We soon became a Training Practice and although we took medical students at one point we really settled into taking those in the last couple of years of their specialty GP training many of whom stayed on to work at the surgery while others took up jobs, locally, in Ashton or further afield, in the UK or abroad in Canada or Qatar!”

Alan is also the Deputy Clinical Director for the Glossopdale Primary Care Network, Honorary Secretary of The Family Doctors Association, Secretary of West Pennine Local Medical Committee and one of the two Regional representatives of the BMA’s GP Committee.

Alan celebrates 30 years at the surgery based in a former bungalow on Cottage Lane that has seen 5 extensions. He says “I very much like being a family & community Dr. There’s many of my colleagues I know who prefer living and working in different places but for me it’s an absolute enhancement to meet my patients in the community. I’ve always seen the practice as a contribution to the community, as practices like the one here at Cottage Lane we’ve tried to do that to offer a community service.”

“We have a fantastic team one of whom pre-dates myself by a couple of years! Of course, it’s changed over the years, but we have been so lucky. I think a lot of people value continuity of care in the practice and that goes for patients and staff. We focus our efforts of meeting the needs of the local community.

Outside of being a GP, Alan enjoys fly-fishing, he is also looking to take up chess. Alan doesn’t have any plans to stop!

We wish him well in continuing to support the community of Gamesley.