Minutes of 4th PPG (Patient Participation Group) meeting held on Monday 26th September 2011

Present

Caroline Gunn (Secretary)

Don Mackenzie (Chair)

Annette Barclay

Rosemary Hayward

Sue Chambers

Chris Davies

Ros Barker

Apologies

Eileen Crawford

Raymond Lyons

1.  Welcome to CLCH

2.  Minutes of the last meeting were not approved – insufficient time

3.  CLCH attended the meeting. It was explained that they were at present joint tenants of the building and not the landlords. That was still with the PCT.
The issues around the 2 members that the GP’s pay 17% of their salaries was raised with CLH. CH and Dr Mintz have met with their line manager to discuss performance issues and the fact that they were not carrying out their jobs as per their job descriptions. This is being followed up by their manager Lee Codrington.
The main issue of Communication – or rather lack of communication was discussed. As joint tenants we felt that issues that affected us were not being communicated. CLCH said that they were going to work on the issue of communication and that quartly meetings were now to be held between the GP practice, CLCH and the PCT.
CLCH then did a presentation of their services.(see attached appendix 1) It was pointed out that the GP consortia were buyers of services, and had choice of services they could buy. This was true of hospitals however within the community and purchasing community services, CLCH had the monopoly. They are the only providers. CLCH’s CEO is James Reily.
CG informed CLCH that she had been trying to get a dietician for the Open Day but as yet despite reminders no one has replied. CG also would like the Stop Smoking Team on the Open Day. Juliet Hicks said that she would follow this up.( see appendix 2 – Email to the 2 service managers – no response as yet)
Phlebotomy and the treatment room were also discussed and a meeting will be taking place some time in October to move this forward with the idea that the GP practice will take over these 2 areas but with their own staff.

4.  Dr Henry Mintz attended the meeting briefly and discussed issues around Phlebotomy as above, the running of the flu clinics including the introduction of the health check for all patients and the Care Plans for the over 75’s. The over 75’s would also be asked if they are happy to have their data uploaded to various health organisations, such as the out of hours, St Mary’s hospital, the LAS and the District Nurses. This would enable these teams to have readily available access to medication, blood pressures, flu vaccinations, blood results etc. It would not have access to consultation notes.
Henry highlighted the issues around getting things done, but with the constraints of 3rd parties such as the PCT and the government.
The alcohol detox service that the GP practice have been running for all CLH practices for a year, had been approved 2 weeks ago to run for a further 6 months. However this decision was overturned last week. We are now working on other sources to try to fund this very successful and cheap option. The decision to overturn it was made by the department who run their own inpatient detox. The cost difference is average £5000 for inpatient detox, and £500 for community detox.
Henry also spoke about the Church Street Masterplan and whether the impact on the practice would be imminent (2013) or long term (2023). This decision was being made in the near future and it was important for the practice to ensure that the plan would be to build a new centre before the old one is knocked down.

5.  Open Day
It is required by the PPG DES, to carry out a pre survey. This would be to ask patients what questions they would like in the survey. This needs to be done quickly so that the survey can be carried out at the Open Day. CG thanked Chris for his wonderful work on the survey so far, and it was decided that with a few tweaks, this survey would be presented to the patients and then we would ask if there were any additional questions that they would like added. PPG members would come into the waiting area a various points during the day in the next 2 weeks to ask these questions.
CG will provide some identity and clipboards.
For the actual Open day, a supply of pens was requested, and the survey put on letterhead. (appendix 3) We would also have a section for email so that we can send patients the PPG newsletter)
Working hours for the Open Day
Eileen and Sue 8.30-10.30
Don and Rosemary 10.30-12.30
Ros and Chris 12.30- 2.30
Annette and ? Raymond 2.30-4.30

6.  AOB – Annette briefly mention the CLH PPG user panel. (See attached Appendix 4)
CG would ask the PCT to attend the next meeting.(Emails sent to Simon Harwood and David Cox)

7.  The next meeting would take place Wednesday 12th October at 6pm. Car parking would be provided.

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