Minutes of the Patient Involvement Group Meeting
Wednesday 09th November 2011, Woodside Surgery
Doctor’s Surgery staff in attendance:Patients in attendance: / Michele Bryden
Kirsty Freeman
Hussain Gandhi
Catherine Gill
Lisa Helliwell
Sue Crossley
Sheila Crothers
Mark Fennelly
Susan Gledhill
Sue Summersgill / Chair/ Practice Manager
Performance and Contracts Co-ordinator
GP/ Teaching Fellow
Partner / Nurse Practitioner
Administration Co-ordinator
Patient at Shelf Surgery
Patient at Mixenden Surgery
Patient at Woodside Surgery
Patient at Woodside Surgery
Patient at Shelf Surgery
People who couldn’t come to the meeting : / Paula Tyndall / Patient at Shelf Surgery
01/13 / Welcome and Introductions
Michele welcomed everyone to the 2ndPatient Group meeting. Catherinegave the history of Caritas. The 3 surgeries weren’t doing very well for many reasons. So in 2003 the surgeries were handed over to the current Caritas partners to look after. They turned standards around and were awarded a contract to run them on their own in 2008. Catherine also told the group how the surgery earns money. Caritas are paid a sum of money to provide NHS care but they have to claim money back for the work they do. This makes sure patients are looked after properly. Caritas are one of only 2 practices in the whole country that do not have Doctors as Partners. Caritas have 3 Nurse Practitioners as Partners.
Michele introduced some members of staff from Caritas. Lisa is in charge of the secretaries and is also responsible for admin rotas, policies and procedures. Kirsty is in charge of monitoring the financial contracts we hold with the PCT (Primary Care Trust) and makes sure patients are called in for their reviews. Gandhi works for Caritas 3 days a week and teaches the students who come to work with us. He is only on a 1year placement and so will be leaving the practice in March 2012.
Michelewelcomed new members Susan and Mark. Michele explained Mark joined the group after seeing the poster in reception. He wrote a compliment letter to the practice and Michele jumped at the chance to invite him to the meetings! /
02/13 / Role of Reception
The group agreed receptionists at the surgery have a tough job. However all agreed there still needed to be a minimum standard of customer service. Michele told the group that the majority of their work was done in back offices. Susan G thought the introduction of the privacy screen at Woodside was a good idea because itstopped people in the waiting room from hearing reception staff talking about other patients. Sheila agreed that privacy wasn’t an issue at Mixenden and the partitions in reception worked well as they were private but you could see the girls working. /
03/13 / The Role of Nurse Practitioner Partners
Sheila asked if because Caritas were nurse led, did the Nurses have more clout than the GPs? Catherine said it was not a case of clout, Patients will always see the person with the most appropriate skills, whether they are a GP or a nurse. Nurse Practitioners train at a similar level to GPs. Gandhi did 10years of training and Catherine did 12years of training. Advanced Practice Nurses are more common in West Yorkshire because the area cannot attract GPs, in Mixenden especially. Sheila agreed nurses worked well at Mixenden but patients need educating as many don’t know exactly what nurses can do. SueC stated the Practice needed to sell its skills and market what they can do. SueS suggested “A Day in the Life of” for the next patient newsletter – all agreed this was a great idea. The Practice will develop this idea for its future publication. / ACTION POINT – Michele, Kirsty and Lisa
04/13 / Triage
The group agreed that even though receptionists have a hard job, they need to sell the skills of the Nurses at the surgery.Catherine and Michele agreed that we needed to have minimum standards especially when referring patients to triage, instead of saying “I’ll HAVE to put you on triage” saying “yes we have appointments, I’ll place you on triage for a ringback”. SueC agreed that first we must educate staff to ask the right thing rather than expect the patient to say the right thing.
Mark suggested going back to basics - make a cheat sheet and have a bit of refresher training for staff. Michele agreed this was a good idea.
The group offered to act as “mystery shoppers”, if the practice supply them with specific questions and give them the answer they should have been given they can feedback to the practice to see if the staff training is working! The Practice will take this back to management meetings to develop this further. / ACTION POINT EVERYONE
05/13 / Opening Hours
Sheila asked if on the mornings we open later, could we stay open later at night. Michele asked the group if they knew each site opened until 8pm one night a week. The group did not know and felt there weren’t any clear posters in the waiting rooms. The group said they wouldn’t use the practice website and this is where the opening hours are available. SueSasked if we could start to email patients with this sort of information. All agreed this was a good idea. SueC also suggested the free notice board on netmums.co.uk. Mark asked if we had a Facebook page or Twitter feed. Kirsty said this had been discussed but the practice was cautious about accidentally breaking patient confidentiality. SueS said you can approve comments before they are publically posted. Mark suggested small milestones for twitter, aiming for 50followers in the first few weeks and say 1000 after 6months. The practice agreed to take this idea back for development. / ACTION POINT Michele, Kirsty and Lisa
06/13 / “DNAs” – people who don’t attend for appointments
The group asked what measures were taken to target patients who don’t attend appointments. Lisa explained that Caritas send letters to people who don’t attend on a regular basis with a warning that they can be removed from the Practice’s list. The group felt this wasn’t a strong method of tackling the problem. Michele said she wanted a balance between not being too soft, and not being too harsh. The group agreed that there was an attitude by some that the NHS is a right.
Mark offered the help of one of his student nurses who could ring back those who don’t attend to find out the reason. Michele agreed this was a good idea and arrangements will be made.
Sue S said that reception needed to keep checking numbers so the reminder texts were coming through to the right people. / ACTION Michele & Mark
07/13 / Triage – is it worth the money?
SueS asked if it was cost effective for the surgery to ring back patients on triage. Catherine said it was a worry for the partners when they first started triage, but it has proven itself to be worth the money because it deals with high numbers of patients quickly, and some might not actually need to be seen. It also helps to reduce the number ofpeople who don’t attend, because their appointments are booked on the same day.When Shelf and Mixenden open at 10am on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the triage nurses have started to answer and deal with calls directly rather than calling patients back. This is working well. /
08/13 / Flu update
Kirsty told the group that the practice had given out 1090 flu jabs since the 23rd September, and the practice had 400 vaccines remaining. SueC asked if we could send a text to those in at risk groups. Michele said she wascautious about doing this but it was definitely on the plans for the future. However this may not target older patients who do not have a mobile phone. Catherine asked for the help of the group to find out why some patients don’t attend. For example some might think that when you have the flu jab, it gives you flu! Sheila agreed this was definitely a concern for some patients and it was all down to continuing to educate patients that getting the flu after having the jab was a coincidence! /
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10/13
11/13 / Update on medical students
Michele let everyone know how many students we had working at the practice. The education co-ordinator for the practice (Lisa Bamforth) has been re-appointed after leaving to work in France earlier in the year. This will help organise their timetables etc. Mark asked if we received funding for these students, Catherine confirmed we do.
Patient leaflet
Michele asked if the patient leaflet could be improved for patients. She told the group most of the content has to be included because the PCT (Primary Care Trust) have said it is necessary. Mark asked if there were easy read versions for patients with learning disabilities and also asked if Caritas printed it in other languages, Braille etc. Even printing it in a larger font might make it easier to read for some patients. Michele explained the leaflets did not cost the practice as money was made for the company from the adverts but she would look in to this. Mark said the practice could look in to getting funding from Health Action Plans. /ACTION Michele
ACTION EVERYONE
How can we grow our group?
Whilst the group felt it was nice to be small as everyone had a chance to speak, it needs more males involved and younger patients. Mark suggested inviting learning disability patients – Catherine agreed to contact and invite. Michele stated that if the group wanted to meet later to try to get more patients involved this can be accommodated.
Patient Newsletter
SueC suggested amendments for the next patient newsletter – firstly that it is more timely, secondly that its written in 2 columns rather than 3, and thirdly that it is printed and aligned properly as the first letter of each word on every line was missing! This will be taken back to those who develop the newsletter /
Next interim meeting: 23rd November Shelf Surgery 4.00pm (to develop and test patient survey)
Next meeting: 11th January 2012, Woodside Surgery, 4:30pm– 6.00pm
UPDATE ON MINUTE 10/13: Michele has been in contact with the company who make our Practice Booklet. They have come back to us to say we can have large, A4 print booklets but they do not currently have the facilities to print booklets out in Braille or translate it in to other languages.
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