A DOCTOR who helped build Frome Valley Medical Centre has retired after taking temperatures for more than three decades.

Dr Charles Sellick has been taking care of patients in Frampton Cotterell since 1975 and has helped hundreds of sick people whilst at the practice.

He said: "I have seen a lot of patients over the years and they have been very generous to me."

Dr Sellick, 63, moved from London to join Witney Mead surgery, in Frampton Cotterell, which was then linked with Saffron surgery, in Winterbourne.

He had trained at Middlesex Hospital in London but opted out of a career in surgery.

"I did a few surgical jobs but decided hospital work was not for me," he said.

"I knew I wanted to become a GP and move towards the West Country.

"I don’t know if I expected to stay in the same job for so long, it was just what you did in our day."

Dr Sellick, who lives in Iron Acton with his wife Sue, a healthcare assistant at the medical centre, became a partner immediately.

In 2000, he and several other doctors at the two surgeries stumped up the £1.5million cash needed to build the new medical centre, on Court Road.

The modern and spacious surgery has seen the register grow to 14,000 patients, who can see their GP and collect prescriptions at the pharmacy. The medical centre is also used to train new doctors, nurses and midwives.

"It is my legacy if you like," said Dr Sellick. "I am very proud of it and have invested a lot in the centre.

"I cannot count the number of hours I have spent trying to get things right so that the building works."

Dr Sellick, whose father Dr Brian Sellick invented the Sellick (cricoid) manoeuvre which prevents regurgitation when patients are given emergency anaesthesia, said he was looking forward to retirement.

"I have not had time to miss it yet," he said.

"But changes in the last 10 years have been considerable. We were being asked to do more and more – it is not your quaint family doctors any more."