Wellfield Health Centre has for many years had a Patient Participation Group (PPG), who work alongside the Doctors and practice management to help promote a better experience for our patients.
The PPG is open to all patients registered with the practice and meets four times a year for no longer that 1.5 hours.
Documents
PPG Terms of Reference
PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP TERMS OF REFERENCE
AIMS OF THE GROUP
To represent the patients of Wellfield Health Centre and work alongside the partnership and practice management to improve services to patients.
MEMBERSHIP
- The PPG is open to all patients registered at the practice
- The patients that sign up to be part of the PPG must be committed to representing all patients and not the individual needs of the patients within the PPG
- PPG members must be committed to attending as many meetings as possible
- The PPG will endeavour to make sure that members reflect the diversity of the practice population
- A third of members shall form a quorum at meetings of the committee including a practice representative
- Membership will be automatically terminated in the event that member ceases to be a patient
OBJECTIVES
The PPG will aim to:
- Act as an advisory group providing perspectives and concerns from patients that can influence how services operate, how accessible they are and how suitable they are for the patients
- Monitor and advise on practice communications e.g. leaflets, social media and website
- Carry out surveys to measure for example patient satisfaction, health needs, awareness and expectations
- To monitor complaints and comments received about the practice and contribute to action plans
- To support health awareness and patient education
- To advise and act as a consultative group for any changes within the practice
- To review the results of patient surveys and suggest changes where appropriate
MEETINGS
- The PPG will meet every quarter for no longer than 1.5 hours unless specifically requested
- Any member of the PPG who is unable to attend a meeting to send their apologies to the group secretary
- The Practice Manager of Wellfield Health Centre to endeavour to attend all meetings and a GP will attend where practical, to present news of developments within the practice and to respond to issues raised by the PPG
- Other members of practice staff and third parties may also be invited to attend
- Minutes of the meeting will be sent to all members of the PPG
- Minutes and notices to be shown on the Practice website and via other appropriate communication channels to ensure maximum patient contact.
GROUND RULES
- The PPG meeting is not a forum for individual complaints and personal issues.
- Silence indicates agreement – speak up if you would like your suggestions to be a part of the discussion!
- Open and honest communication applies to all.
- All views are valid and will be listened to.
- Be flexible, listen, ask for help and support each other.
- No phones or other disruptions.
- Respect the practice and patient confidentiality at all times.
- Discrimination on any grounds will not be tolerated.
- Demonstrate a commitment to delivering results as a group.
- Start and finish meetings on time and stick to the agenda.
WELLFIELD HEALTH CENTRE COMMITMENT
- Wellfield Health Centre will commit to attending the PPG meetings
- Wellfield Health Centre will take forward issues and recommendations from the PPG and supply the responses of actions taken as a result
- Wellfield Health Centre will keep the PPG informed of service development
2025 PPG Minutes
27th August 2025
| Present: | Alison Flannery (Practice Manager) – AF Jennifer Collins (Assistant Practice Manager) – JC BS MP CO LS BD CB | |
| Agenda Item | Discussion | Action |
| Introductions | All members familiar with each other. | |
| Review and agree previous minutes and actions | Reviewed and agreed minutes. Previous actions all completed. | |
| Bowel Screening Speaker | Unfortunately cancelled last minute due to illness. | |
| National Patient Survey | AF shares data from the NPS. The practice has improved on last years scores and are only slightly below the national average in places. | |
| Internal Patient Survey | CO asked about the Friend & Family (F&F) data that we collate. CO advises that she always replies. JC explains that we share the feedback amongst the team and that it is mostly positive. Feedback is also stored anonymously in Teamnet (Internal Intranet) | Alison will consider turning on the additional questions on F&F for a month to explore those responses. Alison to discuss with Tracey (F&F Lead) |
| Website Survey | AF shares responses from the feedback on our website. AF asks the PPG members to pop on and provide feedback if they can. AF asks the PPG to check what’s helpful, what’s not helpful, any constructive criticism or compliments. | Jenny to include URL to our website in email with the minutes. |
| Practice Recruitment | Currently have an advert out to recruit a 6 session per week GP, over 3 days. Interviews to take place in September. LS asked about the number applicants and AF advised that we have had more interest this time than recruitment previously. The practice has also recently recruited an Operations Manager called Toni. Toni will be assisting Jenny leading the patient facing services so allow Jenny some time to progress into a Practice Manager role as Alison looks to reduce her hours in the future. | Jenny to invite Toni to the next meeting as below. |
| Patient Charter (NHS 10 Year Plan) | It has been published this week and will be loaded onto our website in due course. AF advises that whilst we feel we are meeting most areas, we are working on a plan for how we manage the appointment availability once we are ’full’. The practice doesn’t book further than two weeks due to the DNA rate of appointments increasing significantly. BD shares that sometimes when sharing reason for appointment at the front desk it’s a little intrusive. Jenny shared that we have a small private room just to the right of the reception desk if patients wish to talk confidentially for any reason. Alison shared that we used to have cards at the desk that patients can pass to reception discretely. Jenny had not seen these cards. PPG felt these cards would be helpful. Jenny shares that we have commissioned a Signposting Tool to help the receptionists to navigate care appropriately and consistently when handling patient appointment requests. This has been worked through with Dr Ali and Jenny and is being sent off to the software developers for amendments. Once this is received back, we will have a live URL for the receptionists to refer to. | Alison to discuss replacing the cards with Tracey. |
| AOB | Jenny apologises for not completing a day in the life of a prescription request. CB shares that the medication review on prescriptions are confusing at times. Jenny explains that this comes from the clinical system but is not a tool that is used internally. Jenny states that this may be something we need to look at as accepts it can be confusing. MP shares that having different medications on different quantities creates different due dates and that it can be difficult to manage at times. Jenny shares that some medications have to have shorter quantities due to safety or other clinical reasons such as new medications and monitoring. | Jenny to ensure this is complete for the next PPG meeting. Alison will also liaise with Dr O’Brien regarding inviting a GP Trainee to speak with PPG at a later meeting. Jenny happy to look into MP’s medication specifically to see if anything can be done. |
| Ideas for next meeting: | A day in the life of a prescription request Reschedule Bowel Screening Speaker Trainee GP Nursing Associate Demonstration Signposting Tool | |
| Next Meeting: | 26th November 2025 at 4pm. | Jenny to post new time on Facebook. |
28th May 2025
| Present: | Alison Flannery (Practice Manager) – AF Jennifer Collins (Assistant Practice Manager) – JC BS MP CO LS BD CB | |
| Agenda Item | Discussion | Action |
| Introductions | PPG member re-introduced themselves for any new members. | |
| Review and agree previous minutes and actions | Reviewed and agreed minutes. Previous actions all completed. | |
| A day in the life of Jenny | Vlog from 27th May – 10 minutes. | |
| Review Patient Survey for 2025 | Feedback regarding the current patient survey: BS – maybe asking ‘why’ they gave a certain rating. CB – highlighted spelling mistakes and suggested adding in option for ‘no access to internet’. CB also suggested requesting contact details for NHS App help. CB also suggested getting the GP’s to hand them out so that we catch the patients who self check-in as well. | Jenny to make amendments as discussed. |
| Friends and Family Feedback | AF explained that this is a national contractual requirement. | |
| Quality Visit Feedback | AF explained how exceptions can impact us on the data collections. E.g. COPD we are in the amber stage however those patients will have been invited multiple times throughout the year. AF explained that we will discuss with our colleagues to compare what they’re doing possibly different to us. ICB came to meet with AF, JC and Dr Cross to discuss the data. We have now accepted the help of an external team to help us with vaccines uptake. Another amber topic was the list size having increased. However, AF explained that people move into the area, we are also not able to refuse registrations therefore it’s not something that’s within our control. BD asked if we are ever considered ‘full’. JC explained that we are not allowed to close our list anymore, however in the past you could apply but the local GP surgeries would appeal it. AF explained that we then have to create an action plan following this. We have committed hosting further NHS App drop-in sessions, we have enlisted the help for MMR uptake, we have sent out some diabetic education to promote importance of their annual review, etc. | |
| AOB | LS asked how our drop-in phlebotomy service is managed. JC explained that we assigned one staff member each day but the other nurses will jump in to help if they have time between patients or if they have a DNA. Alison also explained that it comes in peaks and troughs with demand and explained we have a drop-in so that’s patients aren’t waiting weeks for an appointment. AF discussed how late we receive the targets for the upcoming year. AF explains the time it takes to go through the targets due to its complexity and why we have different staff members taking lead. AF explained that we can do lots of work for something but then it doesn’t translate into the data that’s being collected. JC explained that we also have a reporting tool regarding the demand were under and if were coping, but even if we are struggling the ICB can very rarely offer us the help that we might need e.g. extra staffing. JC shared that there needs to be more central campaigns for the public to educate on self-care, and help with parental concern. BS mentioned that she has once before commented on her NHS app | Jenny to remind the GP’s to look out for these certain messages and if they cannot issue the request to ask reception to make contact. |
| Ideas for next meeting: | A day in the life of a prescription request. Nina to attend Results from Patient Survey | |
| Next Meeting: | 27th August 2025 at 5:30pm. |
22nd January 2025
| Present: | Alison Flannery (Practice Manager) – AF Jennifer Collins (Assistant Practice Manager) – JC MP LS BD BS | |
| Agenda Item | Discussion | Action |
| Introductions | PPG member re-introduced themselves for any new members. | |
| Review and agree previous minutes and actions | Reviewed and agreed minutes. Previous actions all completed. | Jenny to circulate the minutes following the meeting. As not occurred last time. |
| Patient Survey | National Patient Survey results were poor and the sample small. The practice is considering doing our own local survey to a bigger sample of patients. The idea is to give out the survey to patients who are visiting the practice as they have more recent knowledge of our we function, over a certain number of days. We are having a visit for the Quality Team at the ICB in early March and we are hoping the results from our own survey will help demonstrate the current position we’re in. LS – ?consider putting option for N/A on the survey. | |
| Flu | Uptake in all three key groups is currently the same as last year. 65+ / Children / Under 65 at clinical risk. However, we still have vaccine remaining because we have been set a target 10% higher this year. LS enquired if the RSV vaccine had a good uptake, however, searches available to us do not show uptake, just the outstanding patients, however Alison confirmed that uptake hadn’t been as much as flu. The PPG members are asked to share any ideas to help with increasing the uptake. MP says patient comms could be more in abundance particularly on the waiting room screen. BS shares that some frontline staff didn’t even have their flu jab. Alison confirms that we had seen a decrease in the number of staff wanting the Covid vaccine this year. BD suggests reception staff highlight the patients who are eligible for a flu vaccine. PPG agree that Saturday clinics are a good idea so the practice will look at having more vaccinators on the Saturday and see if we can increase the uptake earlier in the season. | |
| NHS App | MP shares she recently had a notification reminder of a Neuro appointment for the first time ever. The practice currently has a patient usage of 50%. We are hosting another NHS app session on 24th February for any patients who want any help to sign up or navigate the NHS app. LS advises that she doesn’t have a phone compatible with apps. BD asks what appointments are available on the NHS App. Jenny explains that we have been attempting to increase the number of nurse appointments available online however it has become apparent that patients are still inappropriate for the clinic they’ve booked into. BD ask for clarification on how prebookable appointments are already booked when no-one can get an appointment. Jenny clarifies that the practice offers appointments up to two weeks ahead. Follow up appointments are also generated from hospitals, GP reviews, test results etc. | |
| Collective Action | Alison explains that the practice is no longer prescribing on behalf of other services or taking blood tests that contractually should have a prescriber within their own team. This means that the GP’s are able to focus on the patient care we generate internally and any necessary follow-up. Services that request diagnostics and medication from us include: Podiatry Respiratory Referral letters Blood tests BS wonders how many secretaries are employed by the Consultants as the time delay on the letters etc is quite a while. Jenny agreed that she has noticed the time delay due to her own personal experience. | |
| End of year targets (Quality and Outcome Frameworks) | Alison explains that it’s a stream that sets out standards that need to be met within a fiscal year e.g diabetic review, foot checks, blood pressures. We are now in the last quarter and we will try to target the patients who have not engaged. | |
| AOB | BS wondered if the GP Partners all had the same share in the practice. Alison confirmed that share is based on sessional commitment. MP and LS advised that they ordered their medication and received a text from the pharmacy on the same day that it was ready. | Jenny will feedback the positive feedback to the reception team. |
| Ideas for next meeting: | A day in the life of each role within the practice. Results of our local patient survey. Quality Visit feedback. Consider explaining QOF in more detail at a future meeting. | |
| Next Meeting: | 30th April @ 5.30pm |
2024 PPG Minutes
18th September 2024
| Present: | Alison Flannery (Practice Manager) – AF Jennifer Collins (Assistant Practice Manager) – JC Irsa Zubair 5 x PPG Members BS CO LS BD CB Apologies from MP and FM | |
| Agenda Item | Discussion | Action |
| Introductions | PPG member re-introduced themselves for any new members. | |
| Review and agree previous minutes and actions | Continuity of care – Alison advises that there hasn’t been much more communication regarding this. Abtrace – Alison fed back that she has sourced a piece of software that will hopefully automate recalls so patients are not called in again for a blood test that they have already attended for. Rejected medication requests – Jenny explained that it seems communication has improved now that patients are ordering their medication more often. | |
| Practice Pharmacist Role – Irsa Zubair | Irsa explained her role within the practice and how she assesses patients with their medications. Irsa discussed her collaborative work with the PCN Pharmacists and how their reviews are different. Irsa explained that her role is much around medicine safety and developing policies for this, and assisting staff when escalation in medication regimes are needed. Irsa also supports the GP’s with the process of certain blood results. Irsa also clarifies any medication queries with other stakeholders. BS queries if patients can book in with Irsa. Patients can do this in the normal way. BD asks if Irsa review blood results following their annual reviews. Irsa does review these results and is able to follow up on certain conditions e.g blood pressure, cholesterol but anything that needs a diagnosis will go to the GP’s. Alison clarifies that the GP’s still review several blood results as there is just so many. CB questions if our prescribing costs have reduced. Alison confirms that our cost has reduced due to our Patient Led Ordering of prescriptions implemented in April 2024. Irsa explains the workstreams that are ongoing for us to switch out for more cost-effective medications. CB says there’s a particular problem with nutritional drinks due to not reviewing what they still have left before ordering the full amount every month. Irsa explained that we have undertaken some work where Interface came in and reviewed all our patients on this type of item to check they were still appropriate. CB has particular concern regarding care homes. BD queries if certain medications can be added to variable repeats as some items don’t need to be prescribed every month. Alison explains the importance of the GP’s having to review patients taking any medications as this will always have to be the priority despite it sometimes being irritable when the items expire on the medical record. Irsa also explains that certain items available over the counter are designed that way so that if for a short-term issue, we are advised not to prescribe. BS raises the point that sometimes a more expensive form of a medication is actually better for the patient. Irsa confirms that we always need to put the patient first over cost if this is what works best for them. Alison raises that the practice is currently working on reducing our antibiotic prescribing and increasing our patient education to work against antibiotic education. CO asks why we think its so high. Alison responds that we feel its due to old habits and patient expectations when they believe antibiotics have helped during previous illnesses. The GP’s are undertaking some training and implementing techniques to try assist during their consultations as its not unknown for patients to become aggressive with the GP or even reception. Alison advises we have also recruited a Pharmacy Technician Sally in July to work alongside Irsa for further support and resources. Sally and Irsa also support reception also work collaboratively when it comes to shortages. | |
| Feedback from PPG regarding telephone upgrade | Upgrade to telephony system – call back feature is up and running. Jenny shows figures since June 5th and states that the practice has answered over 20,000 calls in this timeframe. | Alison asks the PPG members to be conscious when using the phone system, the next time as we are happy to hear some feedback. |
| 2024 National Patient Survey | Alison – 528 patients invited to feedback and 126 surveys were returned. LS ask if we work collaboratively with other local practices. Alison details the practices in our PCN and share ideas and processes, though sometimes the smaller practices may need to use a different approach to a bigger one but we still bounce off each other. | Alison is hoping to get a similar survey together to do our own now that we have made improvements. |
| Flu, Covid and RSV Clinics | Alison presents eligibility for all 3 vaccines. The practice will be giving RSV on its own as its believed to work best like this. Then the practice will administer Flu and Covid together with a two-week interval. If patients don’t want them together then they can still book separate appointments. There will be Saturday clinics throughout October with some throughout the weekdays. | |
| AOB | BS queries our partnership set up. Alison confirms we have 6 GP Partners and 2 salaried GP’s. The Partners are paid after all bills and salaries are paid. BS asks if we are paid per patient that we have. Alison explains that we are to a point but as the numbers of patients increase, we must then expand our clinical team to ensure we can provide appointments for them. CB informs us that her husband loves using Patchs. Jenny explains that its useful on the practice side and its much easier to communicate with the patients this way. Our usage of Patchs is increasing each month. BS raises the benefit of continuity when seeing the same doctors. Alison advises if both patient and practice align then the receptionist will always try to arrange this. BS asked how far ahead appointments are booked. Jenny advises that we try to keep routine appointments within a two week timeframe. Alison – would like to be able to recruit more PPG members. BS suggests putting a notice on the TV and Alison suggests a noticeboard. CB suggests limiting the number of PPG member we will accept to avoid an unrealistic number of people joining. CB wonders if language barriers are standing in the way. Jenny advises that the website comes in handy because the language can be changed on here so we have been using it to communicate. BS asks if it’s a cost to the practice and Alison confirms the ICB funds this. | |
| Ideas for next meeting: | A day in the life of each role within the practice. | |
| Next Meeting: | Next meeting 22nd January 2025 / 5.30pm start. |
1st May 2024
| Present: | Alison Flannery (Practice Manager) – AF Jennifer Collins (Assistant Practice Manager) – JC 7 x PPG Members | |
| Agenda Item | Discussion | Action |
| Introductions | PPG members re-introduced themselves to refresh ourselves. | |
| Review and agree previous minutes and actions | NHS App PPG member advised it was confusing when receiving a Patch’s message regarding NHS because they are two different things, and she is struggling to locate Patch’s. | Alison / Jenny to help direct PPG member to this after the meeting. |
| Upgrade to Telephone System | All practices now must ensure they have a cloud-based telephony system. The practice has this but is only lacking a ‘call-back’ feature which we have been given a provisional go-live date for in June. PPG members feel that this will be a useful feature and advise it would be good for it to kick-in when queue reaches 10. The practice would also like to implement an options menu so that patients don’t have to unnecessarily listen to messages not relevant to them at that time. PPG members agree this is a good idea. In the last week and half, we have increased the number of pre-bookable appointments and the receptionists have been advised that if it agreed a patient needs an appointment, an appointment should be provided the first time. PPG member asks if a GP can forward book their own follow-ups. Jenny advises that they can but sometimes they will ask reception to arrange this instead. Jenny shared that there have been some patients who has been disappointed receiving an appointment in a few days even for routine symptoms. PPG member shares positive experience of her friend who is registered at Wellfield who was really pleased when booking an appointment in the future. | |
| Patient Led Prescription Ordering | Receptionist audit template – PPG members agree to current We currently have two trainee GP’s with the practice who are supervised by Dr Adamson and Dr O’Brien. They are there for debrief and to talk through their consultations. Alison confirms that they are with the practice temporarily with the practice. Dr O’Brien is undergoing assessment to be able to train an ST3. PPG member asks regarding the roles available at the practice: Practice Pharmacist – Irsa – works in our practice. PCN Paramedic – Craig – looks after our Care Home patients. PPG member comments that in her experience Irsa is very good. The practice doesn’t have any other additional roles including ANP’s or Physician Associates. PPG member agrees that its safest not to have ANP’s. PPG member shared experience that her prescription was ready within 24 hours of ordering. Pt uses Wellfield Pharmacy. Alison explains that we moved to this approach as the pharmacy was overordering items which was costly and wasteful. When patients order via the NHS App, it goes straight into the GPs Inbox which helps speed up the processing. PPG member asks if we have someone working closer with the Care Homes as in her experience she has seen that they are the worst for overordering. PPG member asks how often medication reviews there are. Jenny explains that it can sometimes depends on the drug however as a minimum, medication reviews are annually. Alison explains that sometimes it will be triggered once your authorised medication issues have expired, but that the practice also has an ongoing project of getting patients in during their birthday months for their chronic check and medication review if necessary. | Alison to feedback to the GP’s and receptionists to make sure that they are informing patients if they’re requested medication cannot be authorised and what needs to happen. |
| AOB | Friends and Family – PPG Member advised that she has received multiple requests for feedback from one appointment despite filling it out. Continuity of care – PPG member question how we might try to work towards this in the future. Alison confirms that this is one of our areas assigned for improvement this year. PPG member shares that she interprets that this doesn’t necessarily mean the same GP. Alison confirms that patients have ‘named GP’s’ allocated to them but it doesn’t mean that the GP a patient must see. The allocated GP is there for more of a contractual requirement. PPG member advises that her hospital letters still have GP’s names on from years ago. Jenny explains that a lot of letters come electronically so there’s not much of a risk that the letter won’t reach us. Alison explains that it can be harder for us to allocate to the most appropriate GP however. NHS App appointment booking – Alison explains that whilst we would like to add more appointments on to the app, we have had conflicting advise to let any appts be booked, however new guidance has now explained that only appointments that do not require any signposting should be made available e.g. smear tests. We are also sending out link to selfbook for appts such as flu or Covid appts. PPG Member queries the regularity of patients having their Hba1c checked for Pre-Diabetic patients. Alison explains that the guidance through NICE guidelines advises annual PPG Member asks if the bloods taken at the hospital come through into our system. Alison explains that they don’t automatically come through but that if we are made aware they exist then we can request them into our system. PPG member ask what happens with blood tests because she has been recalled, attended and then continues to get invited. Jenny explained the recall process but also explain that we have seen recent improvement with this process. PPG member share that she’s really impressed with the ongoing efforts that the practice is doing. PPG member shared a successful experience where her husband was able to find a resolution through Patch’s after being disappointed with trying to get through on the phones. PPG member encourages us to promote Pharmacy First as well. PPG member shared that there was a time that pharmacies didn’t advertise their services and patient education is key! | Alison will be looking further into the guidance around the current continuity of care. Alison is planning to look into an assisted way of completing recalls. |
| Ideas for next meeting: | A day in the life of each role within the practice. | |
| Next Meeting: | Jenny to circulate date and PPG happy with 5.30pm start. |
24th January 2024
| Present: | Alison Flannery (Practice Manager) – AF Jennifer Collins (Assistant Practice Manager) – JC LS BD | |
| Agenda Item | Discussion | Action |
| Introductions | All members familiar with each other. | |
| Review and agree previous minutes and actions | Minutes publicised – formally agreed. Terms Of Reference – on website. New website – no feedback. | |
| Updates from the practice: | Promote PATCHS more on the telephone message – see telephone system changes below. Pending a bigger change. Enhanced Access – 1 in 5 Saturdays taking place at Wellfield Health Centre, with one GP, one Nurse and one HCA. We try to make use of them for campaigns and for people who are working. Dr Tsang – extended her stay with us. Dr Cross – returned from maternity leave this week. Jenny has trained an additional 3 staff members to help with 8am rush. Jenny still working on data collection for front desk demand. Local survey – went out on Survey Monkey – some results to share. | |
| Patient experience: | LS shared good patient experience – seen Tuesday, Wednesday rang with results, Rx received on Friday. Alison thanks LS for the feedback and advises she will pass back. LS overheard patient say that things are improved here, and its better all round. Patient Survey – results shared. | |
| Access: | Phone stats – max wait reduced since addition of 3 extra staff members. Pre-bookable – redistribute hopefully towards the end of Feb. But we’re currently reviewing the rota. Appointment availability is the biggest informal complaint. We cannot close our practice list. We are also a training practice. Dr O’Brien is currently a trainer, and Dr Adamson is also a trainer. This makes it difficult for the patients who wish to see her as her time is spread across a lot of different things. Jenny shares that the receptionists have a lot of different resources and access to external appointments and therefore is necessary for them to take symptoms. This helps catch red flags and book patients in with the most appropriate clinicians on the first contact. Jenny shares a list of conditions that from 31st January will be treatable at the pharmacy. This can include the issuing of antibiotics. LS asked if we still offer home visits. Jenny shared that we still offer home visits for needing patients and cover 3 large nursing homes: The Willows, Thames House and The Mews. We are also implementing a Frailty Team to offer a ward round. | |
| Patient Led Ordering: | Patient led ordering – letter examples given out. We are consistently being informed by patients that they have back stock. Jenny to confirm dates and times of NHS App drop-in. We will ask patients and pharmacies to highlight patients who may need further assistance. | |
| Ideas for next meeting: | ||
| Next Meeting: | 1st May 2025 |
2023 PPG Minutes
27th September 2023
| Present: | Alison Flannery (Practice Manager) – AF Jennifer Collins (Assistant Practice Manager) – JC Dr Maeve O’Brien (GP Partner) – MOB CB MP BD LS CON CM | |
| Agenda Item | Discussion | Action |
| Review and agree previous minutes and actions | ?initials mistake for CB (was CD). Practice collated data based on the appropriateness of our appointment use. Showed that 97% of the appointments are booked and signposted accurately. Highlights the importance of sharing symptoms with the receptionists. PPG Member shared that it can be uncomfortable sharing symptoms at the desk. However, the practice are still struggling to highlight the unmet need. | Jenny to correct and repost on website. |
| Terms of reference / Chair & Sec | Alison has updated the TOR. Final copy handed to members. PPG happy for us to chair the meetings but steered by the PPG. | PPG to email over any thoughts by Monday 2nd October. Jenny to post the agreed TOR on the website. |
| Practice Update: New Website | New website has now been established using a standard template following NHS guidelines. The practice is now encouraging the use of the NHS App over Patient Online Services. Has a link to PATCHs on the website. Users need to register to use this. Patients are finding it really useful. PPG member shared that message on telephone directing for UTI’s may lead patients to consider that this is all it is for. | PPG to look at our website and feed back any thoughts via email to Jenny. Jenny to review the message on the telephone and tweak PATCHs message accordingly. Jenny and Alison to consider a more focused promotion around the access utilities we have in place including the staff roles we have. |
| Practice Update: Enhanced Access | From 30th September, the practice will commence their first Enhanced Access clinic. The service is already implemented being run by the neighbouring practices who are in our Primary Care network. | |
| Practice Update: New Salaried GP | Dr N Khan started with the practice in May. New Trainee GP Dr Tsang. With us until next August. She is currently in second year of three. Dr Maeve O’Brien is her trainer. Benefit of being a training practice is that it does contribute to retainment of new GP’s. Other GP’s in the practice are training to become additional Trainers. | |
| Practice Update: Completion of building work | Building work is completed and was handed over in May 2023 Parking can be difficult. Gym goers still park on the carpark. | |
| Practice Update: You said, we did Front Desk Receptionist | Front desk staff change. PPG member witnessed a gentleman attempt to collect a script from a pharmacy but there were issues in locating it and Amy went above and beyond to resolve this for him. Practice shared that Amy is leaving the practice to work with animals and a vacancy has been advertised. | |
| Practice Update: Online Appointments | The practice has now released smear appointments, blood pressure checks and B12 injections online. We are unable to offer anything outside of this as too many errors have occurred where patients have booked the wrong slot and have had to rebook. | |
| Practice Update: Additional 8am Staff | Jenny is currently training additional staff to help with the 8am queue. | Jenny will train 3 additional members of staff. |
| Practice Update: Pre-bookable Appointments | From June the practice has now started offering pre-bookable appointments. Jenny has been auditing the receptionists to ensure that they are in the habit of attempting to book patients into other services available to us and providing a good level of customer service. Jenny also shared difficulties in performing same audit for front desk due to logistics. Suggestion from PPG member to assess the type of issues occurring at the desk which would provide an indication of patterns forming around certain staff members and train accordingly. | Jenny to consider having a front desk log for the receptionists in order to collate data around any difficulties throughout the day to assess needs for training. |
| Practice Update: AccuRx | The practice is utilising a self-book system and have trialled this with our Flu appointments. | |
| Previous action: Self-care: Facebook | Jenny has promoted self-care on the Facebook page, website and also on the waiting room screens. We now have the technology to send links to patients that may not need contact with the GP’s. | |
| A day in the life of a GP | Vlog & elaboration from MOB. PPG felt they had a better understanding of a working day for a GP and were surprised to realise how much goes on. They also shared their admiration for how hard everyone is working especially at improving access and demand. | |
| Friends and Family | Alison shared data from F&F. Practice has a lot of positive feedback on this in contrast to other national patient survey | |
| National Survey | Alison shared National survey data with patients. Unfortunately, not a large sample is used relative to our practice list size so not as accurate and indicative as we would like it to be. The practice feels like the F&F survey offers better insight especially as certain point in time. | |
| Local Survey | The practice would like to issue own Local Survey. Alison is keen for feedback and help to promote the survey from the PPG. PPG Member noted that some of the information appeared to be American. | Alison to update the patient survey and share with PPG for any additional comments. Alison to seek support from PPG members to help with survey in the practice in addition to electronic survey. |
| AOB | PPG member is part of Environmental group – Lots of rubbish in the area from people parking up and throwing takeaway rubbish just by Margaret Ward Court. The Social Prescribing team with the PCN also try and take care of the area. SP lead Graeme has been given an award due to his involvement. Minor ailments – Wellfield Pharmacy are opted in. The receptionists can refer patients or patients can go into the pharmacy themselves. Zero tolerance – the practice has a process in place to send warnings for abusive behaviour. | Jenny to send Graeme’s details over for PPG member who would like to get involved. |
| Next Meeting: | January 24th 2024 – 6pm |
26th April 2023
| Present: | Alison Flannery (Practice Manager) (AF) Jennifer Collins (Assistant Practice Manager) (JC) Dr Maeve O’Brien (GP Partner) (MOB) Alex Brooks (Practice Nurse) (AB) (MP) (CON) (LS) (BD) (CB) (ZA) (SN) (FM) | |
| Agenda Item | Discussion | Action |
| Introductions | Brief introduction from all present. | |
| Terms of Reference and Ground Rules | Referred to 2016 copy of the TOR and the ‘Healthwatch Rochdale’ guidance and all agreed that the 2016 TOR and Healthwatch ground rules Ground Rules were appropriate for | AF to update TOR |
| Aims & Objectives | Reinstate the PPG post Covid-19 pandemic. Discuss plans to improve/amend appointment system post pandemic and winter pressures. | |
| Election of Chair and Secretary | PPG felt it would be best to revisit this once group feel better established and have a better understanding of the expectation surrounding the positions and consider whether we need them. | |
| Update from the GP Practice Building work Appointment system | Building work – building very near to completion. AF thanked the patients for their patience during the build especially with the car parking being limited. Patients were keen to understand the whether the new space would mean that we would be able to provide additional GP’s. JC explained the efforts the practice had been making in order to recruit GP’s, but that we were also experiencing lots of interest for room bookings from other services such as MSK, Dieticians, Paediatric Phlebotomy, Mental Health Practitioner and we were doing our best to accommodate these services for the convenience to our patient population. Appointment System – JC raised that she had received feedback from patients and staff that they would like us to move back to offering pre-bookable appointments up to two weeks ahead. The practice was to commence this from the beginning of June but felt that it was important to explain that patients would not see an increase in the number of appointments available. The PPG welcomed these changes and advised they would even prefer to book further ahead than two weeks. JC then explained how, unfortunately, booking any further ahead means the practice sees a dramatic increase of DNA’s and therefore were not prepared to offer further ahead at this time. The PPG raised the issue of being able to book appointments online, and/or online consultations. AF and JC explained that we do currently offer PATCHS for online consultation and it is effective when used appropriately. AB shared the difficulties in offering appointments online as patients will self-book inappropriately and the nurses have had patients booked in for symptoms that should be with a GP. ZA explained how the ongoing struggle between supply and demand creates a bottle neck in the system that is not always identifiable by patients, despite us offering additional ways to have contact with a GP. JC shared that patients are lot keener to see the GP post pandemic, even for conditions that are minor. The PPG discussed the lack of education surrounding ‘self-care’ and how its seemingly falling on practices to educate. The PPG is keen to help the practice educate our patient population by possibly offering contact in the waiting room with promotional resources to support. SN suggested some form of data collection that would highlight the type of requests coming in, whilst also offering seasonal promotional campaigns. | JC to continue displaying the number of DNA’s on Facebook, posters, website and waiting room screens. JC and AF to arrange internal data collection x2 and feedback. GP’s to determine if patients are being booked in/sign posted appropriately. Receptionists to make note of the types and number of queries coming through on the phones. JC and AF to feedback findings at next PPG and any changes to processes following this. Educational campaign materials to help promote ‘selfcare’. |
| Suggestions for future agenda | Prescription ordering Data collection Promoting Self-care ‘A Day In the Life of a GP’. | MOB to create a presentation to offer insight into a typical day of a GP for next PPG. |
| AOB | ||
| Next Meeting: | Wednesday 27th September 6pm |