Sedbergh Medical Practice
Patient Group Meeting – Thursday 30th April 2015
Minutes of Meeting
Present – Chrissie Hunt, Kate Cairns, Tracy Thornton, Pauline Fozard,
Rosemary Marsden, Shirley Rawnsley
Apologies – Linda Greensmith, Sarah Woof, William Lumb, Ann Allan,
Janice Rusling, John Douglass
Minutes of last meeting – Minutes of last meeting held on 5/2/15
were agreed by the group and happy for them to be published on the
website. We need a regular agenda item to check the minutes and agree
if they can be published.
Patient Survey –It is not a mandatory requirement to undertake a
patient survey as the Patient Participation Enhanced Survey has now
ceased. However the group decided that it is good practice to undertake
an annual survey to establish how patients feel about the service that
they receive. It was agreed that we will run the survey again in February
2016 and as well as having paper copies of the survey can we look at
patients being able to access the survey via the website – LM to see if
this is possible.
Members of the patient group will take shifts in handing out the surveys
to patients in the practice during the period of the survey. Posters need
to be displayed in the waiting room advising we are undertaking a
survey and patients can participate.
RM would like to know if it is possible to tell how many patients have
viewed the results of the patient survey on the website – LM has
looked in to this and unfortunately the software is not
sophisticated enough to pull out this information.
TT needs to follow up the outstanding actions in the 2014/15 survey, as
a patient has raised the issue of needing higher chairs in the waiting
room. CM is looking for companies that specialise in higher chairs that
conform to infection control standards and will ask if we can have a
couple on trial and ask the patient to come in and try them out.
LM has put a message on the Practice Facebook page and website
inviting people aged 18-30 to join the group – as yet we haven’t had
any responses and will keep advertising through various different media.
Seek
representation
on the PPG from
the younger
population –
aged 18 -30
Approach schools.
Advertise in
Lookaround on
Practice Facebook
page and website.
Advertise in waiting
room.
Review expressions of
interest to join the
PPG, if no interest from
the required age group
then look at alternative
ways of recruitment.
September 2015
Provide higher
chairs in waiting
room for
patients with
mobility issues.
Source, cost and
purchase chairs from
the Patient Fund. Seek
advice about the
type/style of chair
from users.
September 2015
Tracy
Thornton –
Practice
Manager
Patient
Participation
Group.
Carol Milburn
– Purchaser
Feedback
costings to
PPG.
Feedback from GP’s – CH – The last three months have been very
busy for all clinicians, but this hasn’t been due to just one contributing
factor. One area that has increased the GP’s workload is dealing with
patients with complex medical problems, in the past these patients
would have been dealt with by a specialist consultant and now they are
being dealt with by the GP’s.
We did achieve full Quality and Outcome Framework points, which was
an achievement due to the hard work of all staff involved with patient
care.
During March we had a higher rate than normal of emergency
admissions to hospital; these have been looked at on a case by case
basis and were mainly unavoidable.
New Staff – Dr’s Jenny and Martin Armer have been working for the
Practice for the past 6 months as one day per week locums replacing the
hours that Dr Buckley worked, we have now made their post permanent
and they are now salaried GP’s who are highly respected by the Practice
team and patients.
Jackie Lawson has joined the dispensing team, Jackie previously worked
for Boot’s and is a qualified dispenser. She will be an asset to the
dispensing team.
Sarah Woof – Unfortunately Sarah has decided to step down from the
Patient Group due to family commitments. Sarah has been a valuable
member of the team and will be missed by the group. Sarah has put
Christine Dodd forward as a replacement group member to stand on
behalf of South Lakes Carers. TT to approach Christine about
joining the group.
AOB – Community Pharmacy minor ailment scheme leaflet (RM) –
Rosemary wanted to know how the pharmacy minor ailment scheme
worked and what benefit it would be to both patients and GP’s. We
explained how we thought the scheme would work, however as it is in
its early roll out we were not totally sure of the system. We understand
that a patient can present at a pharmacy with a minor ailment (listed in
the leaflet) and have a consultation with a pharmacist, the pharmacist
will then determine if they can prescribe over the counter medication, if
the patient does not pay for their prescriptions then they will get the
item free of charge. There was some concern that the system could be
abused by patients. The pharmacies do get paid for the scheme. The
scheme may reduce the number of patients attending the surgery with
minor problems if they know they can access medication from the
pharmacy without the need to see a GP.
Music in waiting room – Several patients have complained that the
music, sometimes it can be very loud and intrusive, can only classic FM
be played, and can there be an allocated quiet waiting area.
We explained that the music that is played is for patient confidentiality
so that when someone is speaking to a receptionist the music does blur
the voices so others in the waiting room cannot over hear what is being
discussed. We have noticed that the volume does seem to go up and
down and this happens when the Wi-Fi drops off, in normal
circumstances the volume is low. In terms of only playing Classic FM,
not everyone likes Classic FM, we felt that a short survey should be
undertaken asking patients their thoughts on the music in the waiting
area and which station they would prefer to listen to. TT - to ask SB to
devise a survey and take this to the next patient group meeting
before handing it out to patients.
TT is speaking to the school nurses about using their waiting
area as a quiet area.
Item to add to agenda – Any items in the suggestion box should be
discussed at the patient group meeting. Results of friends and family
test should also be discussed. Both items should be added as regular
agenda items.
Date of next meeting
Thursday 6th August 2015 @ 5.30pm any agenda items to
tracy.thornton@gp-a82608.nhs.uk