MINUTES OF PATIENT GROUP MEETING HELD ON 11TH JANUARY 2016

PRESENT

Ann Read- Chair

  • Dr Du Preez
  • Tracey Rowles
  • Linda Clifton
  • Steve Garratt
  • Kate Jones
  • David Low
  • John Williams
  • Roger Miles
  • Angela Jervis
  • Jennifer Hazlewood
  • Peter Hazlewood
  • Jennifer Levy-Halford
  • Christine Manning

1.APOLOGIES: Ann Roughan, Helen Mockford, Judith Lavender, Joy Bell.

2. MINUTES AND MATTERS ARISING & 3. SURGERY UPDATE: We have a new receptionist Vicky Long who started in September and is doing very well. Dr Koralage & Dr O’Carroll will leave in February, they will be replaced by 2 new Registrars, and Dr Ullah will be with us until August. After 6 months of recruitment issues we are very pleased that Dr Gunasekera who worked as a registrar with us 3 years ago is joining us on the 19thJanuary as a salaried 8 session GP. This will give the surgery an increase in appointments by approximately 100 per week.

Flu vaccination uptake is down this year. This may be because a number of patients had their flu jabs at pharmacys, the warm weather or the bad publicity given to last season’s flu vaccine programme. Please encourage anyone you know who meets the criteria hasn’t had a flu jab to make an appointment. Flu day went very well and we had raised £2000.00 for charity/surgery, the car park was well controlled & there were no traffic problems this year.

AJ liked the message on the appointment phone telling you where you were in the queue rather than just ringing.

To safeguard the long term future for the surgery we have been in talks with North Hill Medical Group with regards to sharing our work. We have 3 GP partners who are due to retire within the next 5 years where NHMG have a number of younger Drs; they also work in a similar way to us.

NHS England is working towards a national initiative where there will be much larger surgeries for examplein Birmingham & Manchester there are practices with 250,000 patients. The future for us will be safer the bigger we become, it is thought there may be main hub & satellite surgeries, as we have lots of rooms here we are hoping that we may have a Pharmacist also working at the surgery, giving the Dr’s more time. We are not able to purchase a new calling system at this time as we are not sure which computer system we will be using if this goes ahead.

4. HOW TO RESTRUCTURE THE CALL SYSTEM: -The letter inviting patients for their annual long term conditions review had caused some confusion for patients. We will be reviewing & rebuilding the letter & would like to send a draft copy to PPG (patient participation group) members for their valued opinion, this was agreed by all present.

5. COLCHESTER PPG LIAISON MEETING NOVEMBER 2015:-Nobody present had attended the meeting, the minutes had been sent to some members who had attended previous meetings. JW had gone onto the myppg website mentioned in the minutes but found the surgery have to sign up at a cost of £125. TR will find out more information.

6. TEA PARTIES: -Christine Manning gave a talk on her experience of holding a coffee morning & Christmas dinner at her house, inviting 14 very lonely people who all had a wonderful time. The PPG members who are interested in helping run a coffee morning or a tea party should contact Chris Manning via Tracey at the surgery. Chris can then discuss with the group and come back to the surgery with ideas on how this can move forward. TR will liaise with the CCVS (Colchester community voluntary service) on Wednesday to see if they might know of patients who would benefit from the scheme. AR said this is a wonderful idea & she is very keen to support it. It is very difficult for the surgery to commit time at the momentbut the surgery is happy for the waiting room to be used.

7. MISSED APPOINTMENTS: -The proposed new policy for DNA (Did not attend) appointments was approved by all PPG members attending. It was deemed necessary because of the increase in people not attending their appointments. People who DNA 3 appointments will have their case discussed by the Doctors who will decide what action to take.

8. ANY OTHER BUSINESS: - Our 2 Registrars will be on strike tomorrow if the junior doctor strike takes place. This should not affect the surgery as we have the Duty Doctor System in place, all patients that need to be seen will be seen on the day. Our Doctors are in full support of the strike.

AR explained how the Electronic Prescription Service worked. Patients chose there ‘nominated pharmacy’ where they would need to sign up to the service;the nominated pharmacy can be changed at any time by signing up again somewhere else. AR asked if patients using the ‘Managed repeats service’ could check they are not receiving any medication they no longer need, she also said the repeat dispensing service was working very well. Cavalry Rd Pharmacy had notified us that a large number of prescriptionsremain uncollectedand therefore have to be thrown away causing a huge waste of money to the NHS.

JW mentioned about the North East Essex Health Forum: - this is a largely enthusiastic and committed body of people who are interested in health matters. They are all people who have registered as public members of North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group. The Health Forum is not formally part of the Clinical Commissioning Group, but members of the Health Forum Committee are invited to be part of all decision-making meetings within the CCG so that they can obtain and reflect the views of people from North East Essex to the group in a timely way.The Clinical Commissioning Group wants the Health Forum to be as inclusive as possible, and so the criteria for eligibility are very broad. There is more detail on the Join the Health Forumpage.

7. Date of next meeting: - Monday 16th May 2016 at 2.45pm.