Practice History
Dr Henry Walden founded the practice in 1926, after selling the Burmantofts end of the Practice in order to concentrate on building up the Oakwood Lane Surgery.
Dr Harold Sharpe joined Dr Henry Walden in the late 1920s and practised from his own house, which is now the York Road Surgery. Later Dr Harry Silman joined them and practised from his house, which is now the Rookwood Avenue surgery. The initial three partners of the Practice retired towards the end of the 20th century and many long standing patients still remember them with great affection. Dr Sharpe passed away in 1989 and then later Dr Henry Walden in 1992. Dr Setia retired in the spring of 2000 and Dr Silman passed way in 2005. Dr Harry Brown has been a doctor and partner with the Practice for over twenty five years and worked alongside Dr Henry Walden’s daughter, Faye. She worked in the Practice until she retired in 2003, to be replaced by Dr Kathryn Oliver, who had previously completed her registrar training at the Practice and later emigrated to practice in Australia in January 2011.
The Oakwood Lane Practice was closed in April 2001 and many patients transferred over to the other two premises. The reason for this was to consolidate our resources into two sites as opposed to three. The remaining two premises at Rookwood Ave and York Road were both modernised in the 1990s.
Another long standing member of the Practice, Dr Ken Shenderey, retired in 2006 but sadly we heard of his sudden death died in August of 2014 when at the time Dr Sue Laybourn was our Senior Partner. After almost twenty eight years of loyal and dedicated service as a doctor and partner at the Practice, she too retired in April 2015, followed a year later in June 2016 by Dr David Moore who had been at the Practice for twenty three years. We wished them both well and still hear from them occasionally.
Dr Simon Hamer, another registrar who had completed his training at the Practice, replaced Dr Shenderey as a partner in 2006, and in 2010 Dr Shirley Srivastava and later Dr Rachel Featherstone joined the Practice, she later left in December 2017 and relocated to nearby Harrogate, to be replaced by Dr Catherine Gorst in July 2018.
Throughout the years, the Practice has had a long standing commitment to education and training and many doctors who have “learnt their trade” at the Practice are now successful GPs around the world. Dr Joshua Robertson was one such doctor who carried out his part of his training with us in 2013, went on to further his knowledge and experience before returning to the Practice as a partner in 2015, later to become Joint Senior Partner with Dr Simon Hamer in 2019.
Past trainee doctor, Dr Lizzie Cotter (nee McGimpsey) from 2017, joined us as a partner in April 2020 to replace Dr Mary Boland, who left us to retire after being at the Practice for over twenty years. She served as a loyal doctor to her patients predominantly at Rookwood Avenue Surgery. Then just fourteen months later, in July 2021, we saw Dr Harry Brown leave us for retirement after 34 years with the Partnership, we know he is greatly missed by his loyal patient followers and we wish him well. Dr Charlotte Brookes (nee Reynolds) who joined the Practice in June 2018 as a salaried doctor, took over as a Partner from Dr Brown and we wish her a long and happy Partnership.