NORTHFIELDS SURGERY
PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP MEETING
15 FEBRUARY 2014
MINUTES
Those attending:
Apologies:
Kathy Gray
James Guest
Stephen Haude
Denise Hunt – Practice Manager
Pascal Johnson
Terry Jones
Dr Robert Mclaren – GP Partner
Bridget Ogden – Secretary
Ann Scott
Dilip Mehta
Non received
Welcome and Introductions
1. The secretary opened the meeting and welcomed new attendees
Community pharmacy
2. Dilap Mehta from Northfields Pharmacy gave a brief talk on the work of the community
pharmacist and the services they offered in addition to dispensing medicines. These
services included:
 Medicine usage reviews and new medicine services giving more information to
patients on issues and side effects
 Hospital discharge liaison ensuring drugs were available and dispensed in dosage
boxes, which could be delivered to people in their homes. This service helps to
reduce delays in hospital discharge
 Repeat prescriptions
 Health promotion activities such as stopping smoking and flu vaccination
Community pharmacist developed relationships with patients and local GPs which enabled
them to give sound advice on medication, and were often the first point of call for many people.
Points raised
 There were benefits to using a community pharmacist rather than a large chain
because of the relationship and knowledge they had of their customers and local GPs.
This resulted in a better quality service.
 How did the pharmacy staff communicate with people with communication difficulties?
Knowing the patients and their specific needs were important in this area and ensuring
all staff knew that they needed to make an effort to communicate clearly.
Minutes of the Last meeting
3. The minutes of the meeting on 4th December 2013 were agreed.
Practice Update
4. Registering for on-line services: Dr McLaren explained that the new IT system should give
patients a better services and greater access to clinical services via the website. As well
as improvements in the repeat prescription services, patients registered for online services
are now able to book appointments on line and from later in the year they would have
access to clinical records. However, to ensure that patient confidentiality is maintained,
users had to register and their identity had to be checked.
5. In the case of children under the age of 16, the parent would be able to register for access.
The position of older and vulnerable people was more complicated. Where a carer had
power of attorney they could act for patient. Otherwise a carer could only have access if
the patient agreed.
Patient Survey
6. Denise Hunt had circulated the results of the latest patient survey with comparison
information from the 2012/13 survey. There had been an increase in responses from 160
to 174 this year. The secretary pointed out that the comparison between years had to
treated carefully, as small percentage changes may not be statistically significant. In which
case the written comments may throw light on peoples’ thinking.
7. Points made:
 Access is still an issue but this was not a surprise and work was always needed to
improve access. The ability to access more services on-line may help with some
of this. Plans were also being made to enable patients to access GP services
outside of practice hours. More information on this would be available soon.
 Whilst there had been a decline in satisfaction about involvement in decisions and
trust and confidence it was not clear whether these changes were statistically
significant. However this needed to be monitored closely to reverse the situation.
 The PPG should further consider the survey results to develop a future work
programme.
 A timetable for future surveys should be developed so that the PPG were able to
schedule meetings to discuss the survey and issues it should cover as well as
reviewing the results.
PPG Action on public engagement
8. Pascal Johnson circulated the final poster he had designed. The PPG thanked him for his
hard work in doing this. As well as the surgery Dilip Mehta agreed to display a copy in
Northfield Pharmacy and James Guest offered to display a copy on the Ealing Fields
Residents’ Association notice board
9. It was agreed to invite the Carers Centre to give a talk on their work
Any Other Business
10. James Guest had circulated a paper from the Ealing Fields Residents’ Association on bus
services and hospital access once the announced changes to services are fully
implemented. Mr Guest was a member of Transport Group that NW London had
established to look at changes to public transport to facilitate access to hospitals post reorganisation. The PPG asked that they be kept up to date with this work and what action
they could take to support the work.
Date and Time of Next meeting
11. It was agreed the next meeting would be held on Wednesday 2 April at 19.00 hours