FRIENDS OF BRIDGE MEDICAL CENTRE
Inaugural Meeting
Thursday, 25th August 2011
Minutes
1. Welcome and introduction
Dr Alun Cooper welcomed everyone to the first Friends of Bridge Medical
Centre meeting.
2. What is a Patient Representative Group?
Dr Cooper introduced Mr Peter Nicolson, a patient of BMC but also a lay
member of the Crawley Practice Based Commissioning Group and member of
Crawley Patient Participation Group. Dr Cooper suggested in the light of Mr
Nicolson’s current involvement with Crawley Commissioning and Crawley
PPG he might be the obvious choice to begin the process and be the
Chairman for our new group.
Mr Nicolson then gave an overview of his current roles and some initial
thoughts on our new group namely; being respectful of the feelings and views
of all those who attend our meetings. We will be dealing with a wide range of
opinions and views from our patients and this will surely help us all in
understanding the immediate and long term needs of our practice population.
We will be looking to gain 2 connected patient groups; one will be a
Participation Group, beginning with a nucleus of 20 to 30 people and where
we attend meetings in person and one will be a Virtual Group where we will
use letter and post alongside electronic emails to a much wider number of
patients say 200 to 300 patients to gather information and views. Mr Nicolson
also provided a suggested Terms of Reference for the group to work to.
3. Terms of Reference
Those present at the 2 meetings held; 1pm and 6.30pm, agreed in principal to
the terms as set out.
4. How can we become involved with our Practice?
Probably quite slowly to begin with but most likely to meet every 2 to 3
months. Use meetings for those associated with the Participation Group held
at the surgery either during a lunch time period or for an hour after surgery is
closed. It may ultimately be possible to use the surgery on a Saturday
morning.
We will also look at where and how our practice fits in with the wider Crawley
town projects.
5. Patients and the Clinical Commissioning Process.
Mr Nicolson talked briefly about how to become a member of the wider
Crawley Participation group whereby attend wider Crawley wide meetings
listen to and air opinions on wider issues such as the future of the NHS and
the Commissioning processes that GP Practices are going to be taking the
control of by 2013.
6. Any other Business.
For the next meeting it will be helpful for everyone to have some thoughts on
‘Things We Can Do’. Mrs Harrison explained that she would be on leave for a
few weeks but would hope to be back in touch with everyone in
October/November with a view to have a follow up meeting before the
Christmas holidays.
It was agreed that Mrs Harrison would continue to meet with Mr Nicolson and
talk about the way forward.
It was agreed that Mrs Harrison would meet with Mrs Webster to talk about
our Patient Waiting Room Experiences
It was also agreed that Mrs Harrison would meet with Mr Preest to look at
ways to advertise the Group on our Website and in our Newsletter
7. Date of next meeting.
To look for a date week beginning Monday 21st November 2011.
Attended by
Dr Alun Cooper – Senior Partner of BMC
Mrs Sharon Harrison – Practice Manager for BMC
Mr Peter Nicolson – Pre-elected chairman for the Group
Mr Jaswant Jhans
Mr Joe Lansdell
Mrs Rita Lansdell
Mr Bernard Clay
Mrs Georgina Hook
Mr Michael Denman
Mr Trist Woodley
Mrs Priscilla Woodley
Mrs Yolander Webster
Mr Simon Edwards
Mrs Debbie Beal
Mr Mark Jacobs
Mr Steve Preest
Mr Hamid Mahmood
Mrs Janet Brosnan
Mrs Ann Thorndike
Mr Brian Champion