PROSPECT SURGERY PATIENT GROUP
Meeting Notes
Thursday 11 July 2013
Present: David Cowan, Chris Nichols, Pat McCann, David Mitchell, Barry Robinson, Gail Rogers, David Ross, John Whiteman, Zoe Wragg
Visitors: Izzy Andrassy, Rosie Beaumont, Lydia Harpin, Kayleigh Stewart, Jackie Thornton
Apologies: Margaret Baines, Jim Davies, Lisa Southern, Jenny Wilson
Welcome: Chris welcomed the visitors with a brief explanation of the existence of the group and its terms of reference. All the girls are 6th form students studying health and social care. It was good to see the younger generation taking an interest in the proceedings and they took a lively part in the meeting.
Matters from last meeting: Our visitors were the result of JW’s approach to local schools.
DC updated us on the network questionnaire survey. See item below.
Practice Update: End of June there were 7768 patients,
1888 patients had registered online,
117 online prescription requests were received in June
2430 signed up for SMS text reminders of appointments
However in June, 99 patients did not attend, 43 for GPs and 56 for nurses. Since the introduction of text reminders there has been a slight improvement of DNAs.After some discussion it was suggested that when a letter is sent out to patients who miss their appointment it would be useful if a tear-off asking for the reason in the form of tick boxes was provided.
One project for this year is to create additional day capacity to match the days of peak attendance at A&E which appear to be Monday mornings and Friday afternoons. There was some discussion on how to follow up patients who attend during Practice opening hours and will any change of system bring about change in A&E attendance.
Suggestion Box: ZW went through all the slips received since last meeting.
(a) Reception area should be more private, steps to provide this was the playing of music to cover conversations. However there have been comments complaining of the intrusion of this music.
(b) There is an interview room available for further privacy.
(c) Many times there have been suggestions that toys and books should be provided for children. This has been addressed many times and reasons covered on the noticeboard. Issues regarding hygiene and infection control still stand and these items will not be provided.
(d) A complaint about the time that appointments at the Phlebotomy Clinic have overrun was occasionally down to difficult cases, training.
(e) BP area, clinical protocol will be checked e.g. GP first, Nurse etc.
Questionnaire: This Practice is in Network area 6 and the next patient survey is due late August/September. After discussion regarding the use of core questions for all groups in the network it was recognised that each practise would also include questions relevant to them.
Date and Time of next meeting: Thursday 26th September at 2.00pm.