Oakfield Street Surgery

Dr Greville, Dr Heneghan, Dr Griffiths,
Dr Elwood, Dr Walters, Dr A Cooper & Dr Burrows

Telephone Number  0844 477 3115

(between 8.00am to 6.30pm)

Fax Number  01443 862283

This website has been designed to tell you about the practice and the services that we offer. Please read it carefully. We trust that you will find it helpful and informative.

Oakfield Street Practice was founded in the early twenties by a Dr Phillips. He came as the "Comp" doctor to the local Powell Duffryn Colliery which then employed 3,000 men. Sadly, in November 1991 this colliery finally closed and with it the long tradition of mining in the Rhymney Valley came to an end. Dr Phillips, so the tale goes, had red hair. He was assisted by his wife, herself a nurse, and in his latter years he was driven around by a chauffeur. He was later joined by his son Dr R A Phillips (Dr Ron as he was affectionately known). He was destined to become a medical specialist but after coming to help his ailing father for one month he stayed over 35 years! Dr Ron built the practice up until it became one of the largest in Glamorgan. During the war years he looked after 6,000 patients single-handed, no days off and no holidays! The miner paid one penny in the pound and for that his whole family was cared for.

I joined the practice in September 1948, followed a few years later by Dr Owen Thomas. We both stayed for nearly 40 years. Our main surgery was in Ystrad Mynach with front room surgeries in surrounding areas. The main hospital was Caerphilly Miners which was manned by neighbouring doctors and visited by specialists. There were no maternity services and most babies were born at home. In 1957 we acquired a plot of land in Oakfield Street and with £4,000 built one of the first purpose-built surgeries in Wales. Each doctor had a consulting room and there were rooms for the nurse and reception. All very modern at that time. An extension was built on to this in 1982. We have come a long way in 70 years from colliery office to modern surgery, always striving to serve our community well.

Oakfield Health And Education Centre

In 2002 we opened the Health and Education Centre at 16 Bedwlwyn Road which is about 100 metres from the main surgery. Routine surgeries, wound dressings, chronic disease management clinics, nurse-led clinics and counselling surgeries are held here on a daily basis. There is a large training room where patient education forums, staff training and practice and local health board meetings are held.

Practice News and Notices

Flu injections are available for all 'at risk' patients, and all patients aged 65 or over.  Please ring the surgery to make an appointment.  If you are housebound and wish to have a flu injection, please ring the surgery, or if you see the district nurses regularly, let them know.

We have recently changed our appointment system so that one phone call should secure you an appointment.  You can ring any morning from 8am and you will be offered an appointment that morning, if the morning is full, you will be offered the next morning.  You may ask for the doctor of your choice, but it will be subject to availability.  If you prefer, you can ask for a routine appointment , these are available from 2 days to 1 month in advance.  These appointments book up quickly and you will probably have to wait a couple of weeks to be seen, especially if you wish to see a particular doctor.  If you have become ill during the morning and cannot wait to ring in the following morning, ring the surgery and you will be put on a triage list.  The duty doctor will then ring you and assess the urgency of your condition and either invite you to surgery or book you in for the next day. 

So we can offer more appointments we have taken two additional part time GPs, Dr Jon Behr and Dr Bronwen Thomas. 

 To help us, we ask that you keep your appointment or let us know if you are unable to attend.  Repeated failure to attend appointments may result in you being sent a warning letter.  Missing appointments wastes the doctors' time and prevents us from offering the slot to another patient.  Continuing to miss appointments may result in a series of warning letters being sent to you, and ultimately, you may be removed from our list and asked to register elsewhere.