From reception staff to clinicians, the whole Urban Village Medical Practice staff team form part of the homeless service as they all contribute to delivering the service to registered homeless people.
In addition to two of the GP partners who lead on the delivery of the homeless service, the practice employs a core team of Homeless Service staff as follows;
Dr Gerry O'Shea - Senior Partner and Clinical Lead for the Homeless Service
Gerry O'Shea has worked at Practice since 1991 and developed the homeless primary healthcare service 15 years ago. Gerry has a keen interest in GP training and three of his previous registrars now work as GPs in the surgery. He is also interested in liver disease and has helped to develop a successful shared care community based Hepatitis C treatment service at the Practice.
Dr Shaun Jackson - GP Partner and Clinical Lead for the Homeless Service
Shaun Jackson joined the practice in 2000. Shaun has always had an interest in addressing health inequalities and working with marginalised populations to deliver innovative health care. He has extensive experience of working with homeless people, people who experience substance misuse problems, sex workers and asylum seekers.
Emma Hicklin - Homeless Health Service Manager
Emma is a RMN and also has over 20 years’ experience of strategic planning and partnership development working across health, housing and social care.
Emma is currently responsible for the strategic and operational management of both the primary care and hospital in reach aspects of the homeless service at Urban Village Medical Practice.
She is also currently developing some primary care mental health provision for homeless patients registered at the practice.
Roz Hughes - Specialist Practice Nurse - Homeless Health
Roz is a RGN and District Nurse Community Specialist Practitioner with experience in district nursing, working in a local hospice and practice nursing. Roz has also worked as a volunteer nurse for a local charity in Manchester running drop in clinics as part of an evening drop in provision.
Roz currently has responsibility for the primary care & health promotion of homeless patients registered at Urban Village. This involves regular clinics and some outreach work with local drop in centres.
Phil Morton - Case Manager
Phil has over 18 years varied experience of working with homelessness in Manchester. This experience has been gained through working in night/day centres, supported housing projects, rough sleepers outreach team and prescribing drug services.
Phil's current role is to engage homeless patients that have been identified as frequently attending MRI A&E in order to offer intensive support to ensure any identified need is met resulting in a reduction in A&E attendances and overall imporovement in health and well being.
Rachel Brennan - Case Manager
Rachel comes from a background in international development, welfare benefits and education with over 5 years experience working to empower clients to make positive changes in their lives and in partnership development.
Rachel has worked for the practice for 18 months identifying and registering new homeless patients to the service. She works proactively in the community, local prisons and hospitals to engage registered patients with the primary care health services provided by the surgery and links them in with other local support agencies.
Rachael Withey - Homeless Health and Housing Worker (in partnership with Inspiring Change Manchester)
Rachael has previously worked for Manchester City Council within the homeless section for 13 years. This has included work in temporary homeless accommodation, rough sleeper outreach work, floating support (re-housing and resettlement), discharge planning from psychiatric wards and the Domestic Violence Team.
Rachael's current role is to identify and assess patients admitted to the MRI who are homeless and assist with accommodation, benefits, GP registration, clothing in order to achieve appropriate discharge, in order to reduce the number of presentations to hospital.