Patient ParticipationGroup Meetings (PPG)

Tuesday 10 January 2017

Present: / John Maddison (chairman)
Margaret Wilcox
Caroline Gray
Julia Stanway
John Cooper
Janet Wright
Dr Ralphs
Lynne Cooper

Annual General Meeting

1Chairman’s Report

The 2016 AGM was held in January and volunteered me into becoming Chairman with Caroline Gray as Deputy Chair and Secretary.

The PPG has met seven times, in January, March, April, May, July (postponed from June), September and October.

Attendance at the meetings has varied between 5 and 9 with an average of 7. During the year the membership list was revised and we now have 5 virtual members who receive minutes and correspondence on a BCC list.

My thanks go to Caroline for producing minutes and to Sandy for supplying e-mails from the various CCG and other health bodies. My apologies go to you all for delays in forwarding some of these items – occasionally this is because of formatting difficulties but hopefully these will be a thing of the past.

Two PPG Newsletters have been issued in the year in March and September and our thanks go to Mike for editing these and to group and practice members for their contributions.

Regular reports have been received from the Practice at our meetings covering staff movements, awards, concerns, web-site changes, computer and phone system updates etc and Dr Shapley presented information about the 75s scheme at our March meeting.

Members of the group were present in the surgery during PPG awareness week and although no new members were recruited useful observations and positive comments about the practice were received.

I was also pleased to provide a telephone interview to the CQC team during its visit at the beginning of June – the report itself gave the practice an overall rating of Outstanding.

The national concern about pressures on the NHS, especially Accident and Emergency services at hospitals suggests that we should try to become more pro-active with the surgery in finding ways of encouraging the local population to use the most appropriate health services.

We should also consider any way in which we can help the Practice promote healthy lifestyles.

I have attended some Locality Group and related meetings and established a number of useful contacts within them to pursue areas of interest such as TV screens in waiting rooms.

2Election of Officers

Chairman – John Maddison, Deputy Chairman – Mike Turner, Secretary – Caroline Gray

3Date of next AGM

To be identified towards the end of the year.

PPG main meeting – Present = as listed above

  1. Apologies: Sandy Turner, Mike Turner, Jo Webb
  1. Minutes of the last meeting: agreed.
  1. Action points and matters arising
  • It was confirmed that the most recent newsletter was now available on the website.
  • Lynne confirmed that she would look into providing badges for PPG members to use when attending the surgery engaged in PPG activities
  • The group discussed the merits of having a TV monitor at the surgery. The group was informed that in principle the idea was approved but had already been tried and there were more complaints than positive feedback. There was also the issue of the surgery layout which was not suitable. It was agreed that the group would continue to research the matter in respect of other surgeries’ experiences and would come back to the issue. On ice for now.
  • Dr Ralphs told the meeting that the surgery is keen to ensure that patient contact details are up to date with a view to texting patients to remind them of appointments. The group could be of assistance in reminding patients to keep details updated
  • John noted that the new website was up and running but there were typos. John offered to highlight the errors and forward these to Lynne
  1. Correspondence:
  • John noted that he passes on any correspondence by email as and when it appears and will continue to do so
  1. Update from the practice
  • Dr Ralphs informed the meeting that a number of new staff members had been appointed including: Dr Lizzie Cottrell, who was to be made partner in April, Dr Lorna Clarson and Dr Abigail Nguyen both salaried GPs, Dr Shubha Hebbar, who was newly qualified and would work 1 day a week on a 2-year contract. It was expected that another newly qualified doctor would be working 2 days per week on a fixed 1 year contract. There were also now 3 full time nurse practitioners, including Julie Nixon who joined the practice in December and a complex needs nurse who was due to start on 6 March.
  • The group was then informed that Dr Pugsley was to retire at the end of March.
  • Dr Ralphs then asked the group to consider how best to encourage patients to make use of the wide range of skills which the surgery offers and to try to urge patients to consider seeing nurse practitioners as an alternative to going straight to a doctor appointment. Dr Ralphs reiterated that the nurse practitioners were qualified in many areas and could take the pressure off doctor appointments for some matters but would, of course, call for a doctor for any illness with which they could not deal directly.
  • Dr Ralphs also told the group that they were hoping to move to more telephone consultations and were considering having a dedicated day during which patients could make appointments for a call back. The surgery is also looking into skype and face time consultations. Dr Ralphs assured the group that the surgery had to be mindful of more vulnerable patients who may not have access to such technology. However, the use of technology could save both staff and patients much time and patients could receive results by text/phone rather than having to attend the surgery.
  • Due to the increase in staff and the surgery’s plans for introducing new ways of seeing/dealing with patients more space was required and the surgery is looking into ways to accommodate all.
  • Dr Ralphs asked that the group convey the staff changes via the newsletter and to also consider promoting nurse practitioners and highlighting what the nurses can do. The group should also encourage on-line booking for appointments and repeat prescriptions. The group can help show people how to register. Such registration and use would free up the receptionists’ time to enable them to deal with other matters and make for more effective running of the surgery.
  • Dr Ralphs informed the group that a letter concerning diabetes patients had been drafted and asked the group for feedback as the doctors had found previous feedback on such letters to be extremely useful.
  1. PPG’s Lifestyle/Diabetes project – the Staffordshire Hub

There was no update.

  1. Reports from Patients Congress and Locality Group meetings

John had passed on all reports by email prior to the meeting.

  1. Newsletter

The group to consider the points raised by Dr Ralphs at minute 5 and provide copy for Mike to include in the newsletter.

  1. Any other business

None

  1. Date and place of next meeting

Next meeting: 21 February 2017 at 6 pm, the Meeting Room, Bradwell Lodge.