Nick studied Medicine at Exeter College, Oxford and then at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead before working as a junior doctor in Brighton, Guildford and London. In 2008, he qualified as a GP and became a partner in a practice he had trained at in New Malden. Nick is now Clinical Director for the New Malden and Worcester Park Primary Care Network and has been instrumental in setting up and leading a highly successful Covid vaccination programme.
Nick was a keen sportsman and musician while he was at Emanuel and still plays the violin for the Richmond Orchestra.
Did you always know you wanted to go into medicine?
I remember making the decision in about 3rd year when I thought I would like the combination of art and science while dealing with people. I didn’t really know what was involved at that stage! The work experience I did after GCSEs helped cement my interest.
Please can you summarise your career to date.
I read Medicine at Exeter College, Oxford before completing three years at Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead (with UCL), followed by junior hospital jobs in Brighton, Guildford and London. I then decided to change course to become a GP. I qualified as a GP in 2008 and became a partner where I had trained at a practice in New Malden.
The primary care network is a collaboration between six NHS GP practices in the New Malden area covering 62,000 people which I have led since its’ inception two years ago to provide mutual support and run some joint ventures. When we were asked to run a covid vaccine programme, I knew it would be a huge challenge for such a new organisation. However, I also recognised that GPs hold a place of trust in our community which was vital to encourage uptake of the vaccine as our route out of lockdowns and back to some semblance of a normal life. We identified a local church hall and I was keen to involve the whole community from the start, as this was clearly going to require a different scale of working to anything I was used to. We partnered with Volunteering Kingston to create a number of voluntary roles and I ramped up my social media presence to drum up support, given we didn’t have enough employed staff to run it, plus we all had our day jobs seeing patients in busy surgeries. Fortunately, the community really stepped up and we have had an army of volunteers, as well as local restaurants giving us free lunches, gifts from grateful patients and lots of fantastic feedback. The general atmosphere and mood at the centre were really positive which has been so important to encourage people to continue to support it – we even had live music to keep everyone relaxed!
One of the big challenges was trying to get everyone vaccinated, including the housebound, care home residents, the homeless (we did a ‘pop-up’ vaccine clinic at the YMCA), people with learning disabilities (we had a special quiet room), needle-phobics and refugees (we have a large population of North Korean refugees needing interpreters). It was also necessary to get the word of reassurance out to those on the fence about having the jab. I’ve therefore been on ITV news, Radio Jackie, Voice of Islam Radio and various council-arranged live Facebook Q&As as well as doing a weekly community video update on Facebook and Twitter. We even had a visit from the Vaccines Minister, Nadhim Zahawi MP, to thank staff and volunteers as well as to get his wife vaccinated.
We managed to get everyone in for their boosters before Christmas following the announcement that boosters would be offered to everyone by the end of December. (I had a few choice words with my TV when this was announced unexpectedly on a Sunday evening in mid-December!). This took our total for the year to 60,000 jabs. I am proud of my part in leading this programme alongside our brilliant team of staff and volunteers.
What advice would you give to Emanuel students who aspire to a career in medicine?
I have loved being a doctor and I would encourage people with an interest in people and science (in that order!) to apply. It can open so many doors and there are so many different career paths one can pursue within the profession.
What are your best memories of Emanuel?
I have lots of happy memories but many involved competition – scoring a try in a particular House rugby match and having a role in Clyde’s House Music team which we always did well in. My competitive streak was always well stoked at Emanuel!
I am grateful to Emanuel for the education and extra-curricular opportunities it afforded me. I remember my school days fondly and would recommend that current pupils make the most of what’s on offer.
Did any particular teachers at Emanuel influence you in life or your career path?
I always had a love of music and will be forever grateful to Simon Gregory for all the musical activities he facilitated for me and the other small band of musicians. Some of my highlights include playing the music he wrote for a 1920s-themed school production of the Taming of the Shrew, touring various venues with the small musical troupe he led (at the V&A and St Marys University as well as School Fete and Flannels Day) and the almost weekly trips to the Festival Hall and Barbican to see the great orchestras of the world – I’ll never forget The Rite of Spring. I am grateful to Simon for playing the organ at my wedding in Oxford many years later.
Other teachers I am grateful to include the brilliant Tristram Jones-Parry whose whole class got an A grade in A-level maths with virtually no homework and Owen Gunnell who was an inspiring English teacher who liked to go off-piste a lot (we had one Shakespeare play to study for GCSE English but he thought doing 3 would be more fun) and helped me remain an avid reader of fiction.
What are you proudest of from your time at Emanuel?
In 2nd or 3rd year, Ms Sloper entered me and two others for a public speaking competition, with a ‘chair’, a ‘speaker’ and a ‘vote of thanks’. I was the speaker, which was a terrifying prospect, but we did rather well and got through various rounds to get to the regional final at Baden Powell House in Kensington where I gave a speech about the death penalty (not many laughs there!) in front of a hall of 300-400 people including the Headmaster, Peter Thompson, who kindly came along to watch. We came second so we didn’t go through, but I was proud of conquering my fear and this has helped me when speaking in public to this day.
According to our records you wrote the music to the play The Hobbit with Head of Music, Christian Strover. What are your recollections of that?
It happened partly by accident as I was speaking to Mr Strover about his plans for a junior musical of The Hobbit and I think we must have been studying composition at the time so I thought it would be fun to
write a song. When I got started, I just kept going and ended up writing the whole musical. He needed to ‘tidy it up’ quite a bit but it was great to have the whole thing produced and performed.
Which clubs and activities did you get involved in at Emanuel?
I was involved in a lot, so I sometimes struggled to fit it all in! It was mostly sport or music, including rugby 1st XV and cricket 1st XI in the lower school, badminton in 5th/6th form, cross country running, choir, orchestra and smaller musical groups but I also remember chess and debating competitions. I was a chorister at Southwark Cathedral until my voice broke and I studied violin at the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music on a Saturday so my week was always full.
In an issue of The Portcullis, it mentions that you tried to get a Chamber Music group off the ground. What do you recall about this?
Derek Pennell played the viola and also taught me chemistry so we talked about creating a string quartet. We found another violinist and a cellist and he kindly hosted us at his house in Caterham one weekend (I remember his wife’s cakes!) and we tried out various Mozart, Brahms and Dvorak quartets. We played in a few events but always struggled to find enough time to rehearse given all the other commitments we had and then the pressure of A-levels meant I had to start dropping things.
What is something you might say to your former self if you came across yourself in the school playground?
Relax!! I think I was a little too serious as a teenager.
Prefects, 1996 – Nick is pictured standing (far right)