Published Wednesday 30 June 2021 at 11:18
A community is coming together to celebrate two much loved and valued local GPs who celebrate over 50 years of service to the NHS this year.
Drs Mridul Kumar Datta and Dr Saroj Datta who are the partners of Stepping Stones Practice at Audley Health Centre will have devoted over 50 years of long standing service to the NHS from when they started on 1st July 1971. Practice Manager Rosemary Emmonds, along with others at the practice will be hosting a socially distanced celebration party at the practice on Thursday 1st July 2021 at 1pm. The Mayor of Blackburn with Darwen, Councillor Derek Hardman, and Blackburn’s MP Kate Hollern will be joining others to celebrate this incredible achievement.
Dr Mridul Kumar Datta has spent 56 years working in the NHS and 50 years in General Practice, and Dr Saroj Datta has spent 55 years in the NHS and 46 years in General Practice. The husband and wife GP team have devoted a total of 96 years and have contributed a significant amount of care and attention to their patients over the years. Both Drs are 81 and trained as GPs in the 60s and were married in Blackburn in 1966. Dr Datta has been a GP trainer as well as training GPs in family planning. He was the Chair of the GP out of hours service for a number of years. Dr (Mr) Datta comes from a long line of medical professionals, whose great grandfather and grandfather were also doctors. As well as organising GP training Dr Datta also organised and supported continuous medical education through GP appraisal. Dr Datta put Blackburn firmly on the medical map when he set up the 1st vasectomy clinic in Blackburn in 1971, which was also the first in the North West.
The Drs have said:
We are grateful to all our staff, past and present for their support, and to our patients who have stuck with us, some of them over four generations! It seems hard to believe that as a team we have served the NHS for over a century
Rosemary Emmonds, Practice Manager of Audley Health Centre said:
I have worked with both Drs, Mr and Mrs Datta for 18 years and they have been a delight to work with and for. From the outset of my time at the practice it has always been clear that they have put patients at the heart of everything they do, patient care is their main concern. As a GP practice we are regularly assessed and it is their care and attention to the needs of their patients that has shone through these assessments. In the national quality outcomes framework (QOF) we achieved a 100% result for each year we have done this, and we have also achieved a rating of “good” by the care quality commission. It has been an absolute delight to work at this practice for both Drs and our patients respect and appreciate the professionalism, compassion and real humanity that both Dr Mridul and Saroj Datta bring to their work.
Dr Mark Dziobon, GP and Medical Director for the Pennine Lancashire CCGs said:
Drs Mridul and Saroj Datta whose practice is based at Audley Health Centre, Blackburn have served the community and their patients from for a combined 96 years in general practice which is an astonishing commitment and achievement. They are respected and well regarded by GPs and primary care teams in the area and personally having seen them in action providing GP services, I would say that they are kind, skilled and generous of their time, energy and expertise as GPs. GP practices and primary care are the foundation of the NHS, and colleagues like Drs Mirdul and Saroj Datta ensure that this foundation is solid, high quality and long lasting. I congratulate and thank them on behalf of my GP colleagues, the CCG and the wider NHS for their this wonderful achievement.