Drs AJ Hall, J Fishwick, HL Meader, LM Macready, JM Banfield

The Orchard Partnership

Drs AJ Hall, J Fishwick, HL Meader, LM Macready, JM Banfield,

FA Dawe, HV Pickup and AR Corke

Cherry OrchardOld Orchard Spring Orchard TillOrchard

CodfordSouth Street High Street High Street

WarminsterWilton Fovant Shrewton

WiltshireSalisbury Salisbury Salisbury

BA12 0PNWiltshire Wiltshire Wiltshire

SP2 0JU SP3 5JL SP3 4BZ

Tel 01985 85029801722 744775 01722 714789 01980 620259

Fax 01985 85008401722 746616 01722 714702 01980 620060

Minutes of PPG Meeting

Held at 1pm on8thJune 2015 Old Orchard Surgery, Wilton

Present: Andy Howson, Karungi Grant, Karen Johnstone, Pauline Rose, Barbara Tomlinson,

Paula Bremridge, Carole Slater, DrAli Corke, Sue Reeder (minute secretary)

Matters discussed:

1. Arising from the minutes of the meeting of 9th March

• Action on failure to attend appointments (DNA) has been discussed, but applying any form of charge is likely to be problematic. The Partners are considering improved approaches to tackling minor illnesses which tend to be the reason for many DNAs – in many cases the problem has got better between requesting and attending an appointment, which then gets overlooked by the patient.
• Carers clinics/coffee mornings: there has not yet been time to run these at Codford and Fovant, but it is hoped to do so before long.

1. Care Quality Commission

Much practical background preparation is being undertaken around the Group in readiness for future inspection of the Group by the Care Quality Commission, the body which inspects health services and which is due to start in Wiltshire in August. Practices are given only limited notice of an impending visit, so advance preparation is important.

3) Merger with theAvon Valley Practice

As part of the continuing development of locally-focused patient services, and in line with

encouragement by central government, the Orchard Group will be merging with

two similar rural practices which make up the Avon Valley partnership (Upavon and a

branch surgery at Durrington). The enlarged Orchard Valley Partnership will be among

the largest in the area, with 9 GP partners, 2 salaried GPs and a total of 75 other staff

serving almost 20,000 patients. It will come into being on 1st July 2015 and will offer a

range of in-house specialties, including dermatology, cardiology, neurology and breast

cancer care. The administrative hub will be at Wilton, but each surgery will have their own

admin lead and will continue to preserve their own identity and local approach.

The Partnership will also go on working within the West Wiltshire GP Federation to ensure

timely and cost-effective provision of a range of specialist services. The Wiltshire Out of

Hours Service and the7 day-per-week Salisbury Walk-in Centre are provided co-operatively

by the Clinical commissioning group working cooperatively in this way.

4) AAA (abdominal aortic aneurism)screening clinics

This is a government screening programme aimed primarily at men aged over 65

currently run from Salisbury Hospital. Their coordinator is anxious to run local clinics

to make it easier for people to attend, and has trialed two successful sessions at Till

Orchard Surgery. It is hoped that, once further specialist clinical staff from the AAA teamhave completed their training, this can be rolled out to other practices in the Group.

5) Cardio memo

Dr Fiona Dawe has suggested that, if the PPG wishes to consider fund-raising,the

provision of cardio-memo equipment would mean that patients suffering cardiac

symptoms could be provided with a monitor locally rather than have to attend hospital

to be fitted with, and subsequently return, one there. The cost of this equipment is in

the region of £800-£1,500 but would be a valuable addition to patient facilities.

6) Other items covered

• Andy observed that the Avon Valley Partnership appear to have their own PPG. It was agreed that they should be invited to attend these meetings as well, in hopes that they would wish to be involved with the activity of the wider group.DrCorke will speak to them about this
• Pauline Rose reported receiving one patient email which she was pleased to have been able to deal with, assisted by a helpful member of the reception team at Wilton.
• Paula Bremridge commented that many patients are unaware of how good the service within the Orchard Partnership is compared with elsewhere. There was general agreement that the small number of complaints is testament to this.
• It was pointed out that there is currently no newsletter from Shrewton on the website;

DrCorke will raise this with Dr Pickup

The meeting also felt that the Newsletters could be easier to find on the website – this will also be pursued to see if access can be made more obvious

• Including news items in parish magazines/ local news sheet was also considered – Shrewton PPG, who has their next bi-annual meeting on 17th June - report on their meetings in the local ‘Arrowhead’ magazine, for example.
• Carole Slater suggested that news of the forthcoming merger and other developments would reach a wide audience through the Stonehenge Trader, published in Amesbury and covering the Avon and Till valley areas. DrCorke to investigate this.

Date and time of next meeting Monday 14th September, 1pm at Wilton

The meeting closed at 2.05pm

SR 8/6/2015