PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP
The meeting was held at the Howdale Surgery on Wednesday 17 September 2014
Present:
Christine Brooker (CB), Richard Ehlers (RE), Dr Nicholas Hart Senior
Partner (NH), Darren Martin Practice Manager (DM), Susan Perkins (SP)
& Jackie Westrop PPG Chair (JW).
Apologies:
Colin Dancey (CD) & Gladys McCarthy (GM).
1. Acceptance of minutes: Accepted.
Points from the last meeting:
2. Staff photo board: Darren Martin informed the meeting that the photographs
of the doctors and practice manager were now displayed at both sites.
Photographs of Jackie Westrop would be taken, due to her role as PPG chair, after
the meeting for inclusion on the board. The practice would review the possibility of
including the nursing staff in the New Year. Dr Hart said again that it was not the
intention of the practice to have photographs of all staff displayed but agreed to
raise the point at the next full practice meeting.
3. Patient Information Booklet:
Darren Martin informed the meeting of
changes made following on from the recommendation made at the previous PPG
meeting by Colin Dancey, asking if the Patient Information Booklet could be made
more freely available to the patients as a way of increasing awareness of the PPG.
The practice manager informed the meeting that a review had been carried out and
that the handbook was now available in the waiting rooms of both surgeries as well
as at reception. It was stated that the practice felt that this would not only raise
awareness of the PPG but may also help us in our constant efforts to identify those
patients who have carers or act as carers themselves.
4. Changes to aid telephone access:
Darren Martin informed the meeting of
changes made due to one of the previously agreed action points with the PPG. In
the ongoing efforts to further improve telephone access to the surgery the following
points were made.
 Last year the telephone system had been completely updated from
analogue to digital. This had doubled the amount of telephone lines in to the
practice from 2 to 4.
 As part of this year’s action plan, the practice had increased the reception
cover at Howdale by one and three quarter hours in the afternoons. This
now meant that two receptionists were available throughout the day to help
with answering the telephones.
 The practice is still looking at other ways to improve the service further but
wishes to let patients know that the morning and afternoon doctor’s
telephone sessions are always extremely popular and busy. This means
that even with increasing the telephone capacity and the staffing levels
patients will sometimes not be able to get straight through when all of the
doctors are already talking to patients on the telephones.
Agenda of the day:
5. Aims of the PPG: The practice manager informed the meeting that the PPG
flyers and information had been altered to show Jackie Westrop as the new PPG
chair and asked, and was granted, her permission to include her email address on
the flyers for new members to be able to contact her directly. The practice had
again paid for the PPG to be affiliated with the National Association for Patient
Participation (NAPP) had also made this organisation aware of the change of chair
person for our PPG so as to allow them to send any information directly to the
PPG.
The chair asked all members of the PPG to try to think of ways of increasing the
size and cross section of the group and this point would be carried forward to the
next meeting.
Information on the role of Patient Participation Groups and the GP contract was
handed out by the practice manager to the group to help come up with points to
discuss.
6. Suggestion box and website comments: 7 during this period
 1 Positive feedback about our reception team. Good friendly staff who had
even helped the patient to be seen by the doctor despite being late for their
appointment on two separate occasions. Keep up the good work.
 1 Positive feedback about one of our doctors. The best doctor I have ever
had. However, the same patient asked that the radio station played in the
waiting room be changed from Radio 2 to Classic FM as they did not like the
former. The practice manager informed the meeting that the surgery would
never be able to please all of our patients with the choice of radio station
played but that the decision to use Radio 2 was due to the fact that it gave a
broader content of news, chat and music that hopefully would appeal to
most rather than limiting the musical choice to just one style. It was also
reminded that the playing of music in the waiting room was not only to
entertain patients whilst they wait but also to help us maintain confidentiality
of those patients at the reception or dispensing hatches.
 One of our younger patients had asked if the practice could supply free
drinks, childrens books and a TV magazine. There is no plan to have a
drinks dispenser in the waiting room but patients can request water from the
reception team. The practice has toys that are easy to wipe clean to aid us
with infection control and would look at the possibility of adding some
childrens books to this area as well.
 1 asked for the possibility of having a female GP at least once a month.
The practice is an equal opportunities employer and as such would never
employ a member of staff solely due to their gender, only due to their
suitability to cover the vacant position.
 1 commented that to try to decrease the number of missed appointments
would it be possible to add a message about this on the appointment card.
This point was agreed to be both valid and a good idea. As such the
practice manager had already brought this up at one of the practices weekly
management meetings and this was already now in place and being used.
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The practice would like to thank the patient who had taken the time to raise
this comment.
1 patient asked if the practice could get a larger post box for the front door
at the Howdale. The current cage attached to the letter box already reaches
down to the floor and cannot be increased. There is a separate letter box
on the fire door which is normally used by the Royal Mail but on a couple of
recent occasions they had used the letter box on the front door normally
used by patients to post their repeat prescriptions. This would be brought
up with the Post Office.
1 patient asked about marking prescription bags if the items were in more
than one bag. This is already carried out for items dispensed at the same
time with bags for example being marked 1 of 2. The practice has had to put
up posters asking that patients check that their dispensed items are
complete before leaving the practice. This is due to the fact that some items
of medication may not be in stock when the items are being dispensed and
would therefore be done on the following day when the ordered items arrive
from our suppliers. Also it may be the case that the dispensary team are
awaiting instruction from the patient’s doctor on a specific item and therefore
the items cannot be dispensed in one action. We have also had the same
problem arise where a patient has not returned to collect a previous
dispensed prescription and then has submitted another prescription to our
team. In these instances it may be possible for there to be more than one
prescription bag on the shelf awaiting the patient but not marked as part of
one order. Once again, whilst the practice makes every effort to ensure that
our patients receive all of the items of their medication ordered, we ask that
patients help us by checking the contents of their prescription bag to assist
us with this process.
7. Friends and Family Test: The new Friends and Family Test will be starting at
the Howdale Group Practice from the 1st of December 2014. This is a new
incentive that has been added to the GP contract that gives the patient the
opportunity to complete a small survey each time they use the surgery. There is a
multiple choice question that asks the following.
“How likely are you to recommend our service to friends and family if they needed
similar care or treatment?”
The patient is then asked to circle the appropriate statement from those listed
below.
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Extremely likely
Likely
Neither likely or unlikely
Extremely unlikely
Don’t know
There is then also space for the patient to tell us the main reason for selecting their
statement if they wish to. The leaflets will be available in the waiting rooms, at
reception and can even be filled in online on our website. The patient can include
their name and contact details if the wish but this is purely optional. This
information is then collated monthly and forwarded to the NHS. The practice would
like to ask all of our patients to fill out the leaflet whenever possible to help us carry
on in our efforts of understanding your needs and views and constantly improving
the service we supply.
8. PPG DES: The surgery looks to agree 3 action plans with the PPG for areas
that we look to improve our service. This year the PPG had already selected
telephone access and did not attend rates as 2 of the 3 areas to be selected as
action plans, but due to illness had not meet to arrange the third area yet. The
practice manager asked the PPG for possible ideas. Some areas were discussed
as possible topics such as compliance with medications and social care but it
proved difficult to select criteria to assess these points by or to monitor the
effectiveness of any changes made. The practice manager therefore made the
suggestion that a mini survey be carried out at both surgeries asking our patients
for their recommendations to which potential areas of improvement they thought
would benefit them the most. The practice manager would then collate this data
along with that of the new Friends and Family Test and update the PPG members
at the next meeting with a view to selecting the third action point.
9. Potential redevelopment of the Bexwell airfield site: The question was raised
at the previous meeting as to if there were any plans by the surgery to deal with
any potential influx of people due to the possible redevelopment of the Bexwell
airfield site. The practice manager informed the meeting that the surgery had still
not received any official information about the proposed works. There is the
possibility that this work may go through by 2020 with a potential of another 4000
homes built in the Downham Market area but the practice would have to wait to
see how these plans transpired before being able to comment on this area. A
further update will be given as and when more information comes through.
10. Avoiding unplanned admissions: The practice is in the process of identifying
the top 2% of our patients that statistically may have more chance of an unplanned
admission in to hospital. This is part of a national initiative and, whilst being very
labour intensive and increasing the workload on both clinical and administrative
staff, is being adopted as quickly as possible. The patients identified will be
contacted to ask for their consent to be included in our register, will have there own
usual doctor verified and action plans drawn up to try to help avoid unplanned
hospital admissions. These care plans would then be reviewed on a regular basis
with any unplanned admissions to hospital being followed up by the GP.
11. Flu Season: The flu immunisation season has arrived again. The practice was
advertising the specialised flu clinics put on by the nursing team but informed the
PPG that the nurses where also offering to immunise entitled patients throughout
the flu season when they presented for a nursing appointment.
12. Compliance with medications:
Christine Brooker had raised this point again
but despite discussion over health literacy and patient education of the issues there
were no firm ideas put forward as to how to implement this. The PPG were asked
to think of possible ways to achieve this and the issue would be mentioned during
one of the surgeries clinical meetings prior to the next scheduled PPG meeting to
ascertain the clinician’s points of view.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
13. Dementia rates issues:
The chair raised the issue around dementia rates.
There is ongoing work that the practice is undertaking at present and new initiatives
just being released by the NHS so at present there was no fixed comment by the
practice. The chair stated that she had attended the course and would be willing to
provide a dementia information session for our patients if we were happy to have
her run this at the surgery. More information about the content of the session was
requested which will be forwarded to the practice manager.
DATE OF NEXT MEETING
Wednesday 7th January 2015 at 12:00.
The time and date above is correct but is a
change to that originally agreed.