Benson Patients Panel Meeting on 8th September 2009
Minutes
Present: Denis de Beger, Janet Burtt, Fran Butler, Joyce Clarke, Maureen George, Pauline Hoad, Caroline Nathan, John Reid, Alison Richmond, Dr Peter Rose.
1. Presentation by Sally Kidd, Clinical Development Lead
Sally Kidd explained that she is employed by the PCT to lead a team of nurses that cover a locality or cluster. The surgeries include Benson (her base), Watlington, Wallingford, Berinsfield and Clifton Hampden. Her role is to support and develop all staff in her locality or cluster. Her role includes both Clinical and managerial.
The locality community nurses meet together weekly to discuss staffing and patient capacity and if necessary some nurses will then help in other areas. This allows all patients to receive optimum treatment and visits.
Sally is based full time at Benson Surgery along with two community nurses, Stella Mitchell and Lucy Verhoeven. Their role is predominantly to attend those that are housebound or cannot get to the Surgery for one reason or another.
District nurse role:
District nurses play a crucial role in the primary health care team. They visit people in their own homes or in residential care homes, providing care for patients and supporting family members.
Patients may include those who are housebound, the elderly, the terminally ill, the disabled and those who have recently been discharged from hospital.
As well as providing direct patient care, district nurses also have a teaching role, working with patients to enable them to care for themselves or with family members teaching them how to give care to their relatives. District nurses also offer emotional help and advice to patients and their families and teach basic care-giving skills where needed.
District nurses play a vital role in keeping hospital admissions and readmissions to a minimum and ensuring that patients can return to their own homes as soon as possible.
A fundamental part of district nursing is promoting healthy lifestyles and health education/teaching.
Typical work activities include:
- accepting referrals from GPs and hospitals;
- assessing, managing and planning the care of patients;
- offering emotional support to patients and their families and carers, and teaching basic care-giving skills;
- establishing links with patients' families, carers and other health professionals;
- checking patients, families and carers understand forms of treatment and how medication should be administered;
- identifying social care problems and referring to appropriate organizations where necessary;
- checking temperature, blood pressure and pulse readings, administering drugs and injections, cleaning and dressing wounds, taking blood and urine samples;
- collaborating with colleagues from a range of disciplines;
- checking patients are responding well to treatment;
- prescribing aids, as required;
- Liaising with other services on the patient's behalf to help to provide and co-ordinate a wide range of care services, e.g. care agencies, voluntary agencies and other pHs organisations.
Sally expressed that there is no longer a District nursing course but nurses can now do modules to enable them to gain experience which will allow them to apply for a variety of roles within the community setting/teams. This in turn will encourage younger nurses to have the opportunity to work out in the community.
Most nurses are female, in the community but there are a small number of male nurses. Some female patients feel uncomfortable about treatment by a male nurse.
2. Apologies: Peter Clarke, Fenella Galpin, Peggy Jones, Mike Mackney.
3. Minutes of the meeting on 15 April
The minutes were approved without change.
4. Matters arising
None.
5. Nursing in the Practice
Pam Alcorn has left. Alison Richmond has increased her hours, as previously agreed, to cope with the increasing demands of chronic disease management. A new 16-hours practice nurse post has been advertised and a candidate will be interviewed soon. Carol Saxby (who is a part-time health care assistant) is also extending her role to include ear irrigation amongst her current duties.
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6. Policy on referrals
John Reid asked about the policy on referrals in view of a case where referral had been delayed by some three months. The Panel was assured that the new policy on referrals was not the cause – the new system rarely causes a delay of more than a day, unless the referral is complicated and needs to be discussed by all doctors, which happens weekly. Peter Rose said that this case may have been one where the symptoms were such that the GP felt that referral was not necessary. He said that he would mention referrals in a future Benson Bulletin article.
7. Swine flu arrangements
The incidence of swine flu is much lower now and the emergency measures in the waiting room (no touch screen, no magazines) are no longer in place. Those with suspected swine flu were asked to wait until the end of the day to avoid contact with other patients. For most people, the illness is mild (typically, 2 days in bed) and there is no need to consult the surgery. No records are being kept of the numbers infected. The Surgery has no swine flu immunizations yet because these have not been released nationally. When the swine flu vaccine is available, it is thought that two injections three weeks apart will be needed. Priority will be given to medical staff and those with chronic disease. Ordinary flu injections will take place in October as usual.
8. Cancer support group
The group has met once since the previous Patient Panel meeting. Some people prefer not to attend meetings and are being supported by ’phone. Maureen attended a Network User Group meeting in Oxford for patients, carers, and health workers. There was a demonstration of the CANCER COMMISSIONING TOOLKIT, details of which can be found at which aims to make information about cancer care in England freely available. Of particular interest was a talk by a man who had throat cancer and had to relearn how to speak and by a lady sitting on a regional committee that looks at individual patients and decides whether or not they should get specific treatments. Even though treatments may be approved by NICE not all trusts can/will pay for the more expensive ones.
9. Date for the next meeting
The next meeting will be on 13 January at 7-45 p.m. in the Surgery.
10. AOB
John Reid mentioned that the PCT AGM will take place on 24 September, 5-7 p.m. in Oxford. Denis and John agreed to attend.
Peter Rose reported that Lucy Jenkins will be on sabbatical for 6 months from November 6th. A locum will be appointed in her place.
Peter Rose said that there had been a very interesting visit to the Surgery by all the members of a GP practice in Denmark. They were here for 4 hours. The Danish system is broadly comparable to the UK system, but there are some significant differences. Their IT system is far better than ours, but in Denmark the wait for appointments may be as long as 5 days. The quality control systems in place in Denmark did not seem to be as good as those in UK.
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