Wychwood Surgery Patient Participation Group – minutes of meeting 30 Mar 2017

Present: Wendy Coulton, Catherine Hitchens, Charles Keighley, Sally Miller.

Apologies: Caroline Grigg, Peter Hills

It was confirmed that Sarah Denham, Karen Humphreys and John Naish had resigned from the Group.

1The last meeting on 13 Sept 2016 was not minuted. At that meeting the PPG resignations were noted. Vanessa gave an update on the Practice staff. GP recruitment was falling nationally, and the situation was becoming critical. Dr Rory Hamilton, ST3, had completed his year with the practice and left at the beginning of August and Dr Carol Doan, ST3, had joined the practice for her final year GP training at the beginning of August. Dr Katy Walsh, ST3, was part time and her training was due to be completed at the end of January 2017. There were no other changes in personnel at that time.

The practice was beginning to look at working with other local practices within the North Oxfordshire Locality Group, with a view to working together closely as a Rural Cluster. The practices include Chipping Norton Health Centre, Deddington Health Centre and Bloxham Surgery which incorporates a branch surgery at Hook Norton. Sibford Surgery was considering whether or not to join the Rural Cluster. It was hoped that these practices would be of a large enough patient-base to be able to commission services they wished to provide including employing a clinical pharmacist, extending physio provision to include triage & management plans rather than hands-on physio, and a mental health support worker. The commissioning of the said services would be through the GP Access Fund or Sustainability & Transformation Funding rather than being funded by individual surgeries.

2It was agreed that the principal aim of the PPG was to help the surgery maintain its excellent standards. While not being part of the surgery’s complaint procedure, the group should let the surgery know of any problems highlighted by patients.

3As a result of the closure of the Deer Park surgery, Witney, there had been an increase in patients from Leafield, bringing the patient roll to over 6000.

4The number of emails etc. received from the Oxfordshire ClinicalCommissioning Group (OCCG) and the North Oxfordshire Locality Patient and Public Forum (NOLF) were excessive and too time consuming. Vanessa subsequently agreed to prioritise these communications.

5There is a need to recruit more members to the group. Sally agreed to draft a note for inclusion in the next Surgery Newsletter and the various village publications. Wendy agreed to investigate the use of social media to attract a younger audience. Catherine agreed to invite Prof. Elizabeth Morris to the next meeting, to see if she was interested in joining the group.Vanessa subsequently concurred with this suggestion.

6It was agreed that all members should visit the National PPG Association’s website, to see whether the group should join the Association. The costs currently are £60 for year 1 and thereafter £40 pa. Vanessa subsequentlysaid that the practice had previously agreed to pay the subscription.

Vanessa Newman and Dr Brown joined the meeting.

7The OCCG’s consultation document was included in Vanessa’s email of 30 Jan 2017. Individuals wishing to respond should do so by 9 April. Vanessa reported that there was a Patient representative on the OCCG, and that a part of theirBoardmeetings were open to the public.

8Vanessa described the various groups in the local health care bureaucracy.The Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (OCCG) is the chief organisation, and holds ultimate power. The North Oxfordshire Locality Group (NOLG) is one of several such groups covering different parts of Oxfordshire. It consists of GPs, Practice Managers and other health care officials, and reports to OCCG.TheNorth Oxfordshire Locality Patient and Public Forum (NOLF)aims to provide the patients’ perspective, and also reports to OCCG. At this time no members of the PPG were planning to attend either NOLF or NOLG.

9Plans for the Horton Hospital Banbury were such that there was likely to bea loss of some services. There had been a failure to appoint a Consultant Gynaecologist, with the result that the maternity unit was at risk with patients having to travel to the JR in Oxford.

10Plans for Chipping Norton hospital included possibly the closure of the Maternity Unit. This seemed most unfortunate since the existing building and service was very good.

11The North Oxfordshire Federation of GP practices was designed to encourage practices to work together to commission services. This was separate to the Rural Cluster. The Doctors had created a not for profit company to assist with this.

12Super hubs were part of a Government initiative to create economies of scale in the provision of GP services. At present they are not compulsory and it appears thaturban and inner-city practices are beginning to adopting this way of working due to recruitment and premises issues.

13Sally expressed concern for the treatment of under 16s with mental health problems.

14Vanessa was concerned about the falling number of Volunteer Drivers. Could Chipping Norton Lions and Rotary help find volunteers? Catherine agreed to investigate whether the Villager bus service could assist in filling the gap left by declining numbers of volunteer drivers.

Next meeting - Wed 24 May at 6.30 at the Surgery