AN award-winning doctor who has become a ‘long Covid’ expert after recovering from it himself is launching a new Yorkshire home-visiting healthcare service. which will extend to parts of Craven.

Dr Ben Sinclair, who trained in Yorkshire for 10 years and supported patients in York District Hospital’s A&E and Special Care Baby Unit, heads a Leeds-based team of GPs treating all medical conditions, including long Covid.

His new home-visiting service, Dr Finlay’s Private Practice, is named after the fictional GP Dr Alan Finlay, from the long-running BBC TV drama ‘Dr Finlay’s Casebook’.

The practice will be based in Leeds with doctors working across the city, also supporting patients in, Bradford, York, Harrogate, Wakefield, Barnsley, Otley, Ilkley, Skipton, Pateley Bridge, Boroughbridge, Easingwold, Thirsk, Wetherby, Boston Spa, Pickering, Malton, Hovingham, Beverley, Tadcaster and the wider North Yorkshire region on request.

Dr Ben Sinclair said today: “Dr Finlay worked hard to become a trusted, dependable and friendly family doctor whose home-visiting service and sympathetic bedside manner were much valued by the community he served. Our practice, which shares those same values, is named after him and is a tribute to him, 50 years on.

“At a time when staff are facing huge increases in demand, we can take the pressure off the NHS because every patient we deal with is one less patient relying on the hard-pressed resources of the NHS.

“I’ve spent more time in my life in Yorkshire than anywhere else, so launching our new home-visiting, private GP service from Leeds near my university is like coming home for me.”

A Bachelor of Medicine & Surgery (MBChB) and a Member of the Royal College of General Practitioners (MRCGP), Dr Sinclair, 46, is leading three Yorkshire GPs who have expertise in all medical conditions, supporting patients with home visits, face-to-face and online appointments with additional support from two local nutritionists and four dedicated online psychologists.

He studied for a five-year medical and surgical degree at the University of Leeds in 1996, and qualified as a GP in 2006, developed specialist Covid and Long Covid expertise after contracting the virus himself two years ago.

Last month, he and his healthcare service Dr Finlay’s Private Practice were honoured by industry leaders when he won Business of the Year at the prestigious Phoenix Business Club Awards 2022.

The other GPs and specialists working with Dr Sinclair are: Dr Samantha Rosenberg, Dr Aaron Brown. Dr Maria Wrest. Nutritionist Sally Duffin and registered Nutritional Therapist Natasha Rosenberg.