BRIDGE SURGERY’S PATIENT GROUP
Minutes of Group Meeting held on
Wednesday 22nd January 2014 at 6.00pm
Present:
Charles Pidsley (GP)
Julie Finch (Practice Manager)
Cyril Burton (Patient)
Angie Carpenter (Patient)
1.0
Gerald Chatfield (Patient)
Marion Grenville (Patient)
Angela Henry (Secretary)
David Leese (Patient)
Apologies:
Vivien Brooks (Practice Administrator)
Julie Truszkowska (Patient)
Janet Watkin (Patient)
Robert Wilkinson (Chair)
Heather Robinson (Patient)
2.0
Welcome and Introduction with Dr Pidsley
Each attendee spoke to give their name, reason for being part of the Group and length of service.
We all welcomed the two new members, Dr Pidsley and Julie T.
3.0
Medicine Waste Campaign
Claire Dearden joined the meeting to talk to us about the problem and expense of waste
medicines. She is a Pharmacy Technician and introduced us to a local campaign which is being launched
within the next couple of weeks and which is designed to reduce medicine waste. An estimated
£800,000 worth of medicines are wasted annually in East Staffordshire alone, and last year South
Staffordshire destroyed 25 tons of medicines at a disposal cost of £40,000, plus the value of the
medicines. The figures do not include the cost of unwanted, unused or out of date medicines which are
not returned to pharmacists and this all adds up to an awful lot of money which could be better used
within other areas of the NHS.
Educating patients to apply only for what repeat prescriptions are necessary could reduce some of
this expensive wastage. Medicines cannot be reused once they have left the premises of the dispensing
pharmacy, so returned items have to be destroyed even if the packaging is unopened. One way to
reduce this is to ask patients to check their medicines before leaving the dispenser's premises in case of
surgery or pharmacy error. Another cause of wastage is that sometimes where the pharmacy orders
the repeat prescription, they request everything to be repeated, regardless of what is needed, and in
the instances where the pharmacy delivers the medicines to the patient, it would be too late to return
items for re-issue. Dr Pidsley suggested that patients tell the Surgery if medicines are issued which
aren't required as it may be possible to do something about that at the prescription stage. On-line
ordering, available via the Surgery's website or SystmOnline (an internet service available to all patients
by asking a GP for registration) may reduce some of the waste.
Claire is also having talks with pharmacists and hospitals to attempt to reduce wastage. Several
Group members mentioned that when a patient is advised of a planned admission to hospital, they are
asked to take in all their prescribed medicines, but upon admission these are all taken away and
presumably join the wastage as they are never returned and new ones are issued by the hospital. Dr
Pidsley commented that it would be advisable to take only one or two days' supply as often patients
will still be on the same medication when they come out of hospital.
Julie F thanked Claire for her presentation, which had attracted many questions and a lively
interest.
4.0
Group Business
In an effort to ensure that future meetings run to time, this agenda had approximate timings, but
Any Other Business (AOB) is never predictable. Rob therefore suggested that, in future, item 2 on the
Agenda is Notification of Any Other Business, which would give members the opportunity to bring a
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subject to the meeting, and we could all agree whether we were able to deal with the matter at that
meeting (under AOB) or whether is needed to be discussed as a full Agenda item at a future meeting.
David suggested that there could be no reason to have AOB, and we agreed that perhaps in time it
would indeed become unnecessary.
In terms of communication, it would be helpful if anyone who wished to raise a topic for discussion
advised Rob, Angela or Julie F well before the next meeting so that it could be included on the Agenda.
For those on email, Rob and Angela can both be contacted via the sender list on Julie's emails.
Otherwise, would people please ring Julie to let her know about suggested Agenda items.
This raised the subject of people contacting each other direct, and all present were asked if they
had any objections to their personal details (email and/or address) being known to other members of
the Group. We will need to return to this point when all members are present or have been contacted.
5.0
Minutes of Last Meeting
Having been read by all attendees prior to the meeting, these were approved unanimously at 6.40.
6.0
Matters Arising (not included on the agenda)
Cyril has provided some leaflets on dementia, and brought some books issued by the Alzheimer's
Society entitled "The dementia guide" which some members took to read. It remains a subject very
much in the media and something which will prove in the future to be a massive drain on NHS
resources. Julie T suggested that it may not help patients to read this book unless it was pertinent to
themselves or people close to them and Dr Pidsley said that we should look at it first.
7.0
Patient Survey Results
Returning to this topic from our last meeting, it was clear from some of the comments that the
survey had been done at a time when news of Dr Waddy's imminent retirement became widespread
and when many patients were therefore trying to make appointments to see her before she finished.
We looked at what could be done practically to address any of the issues shown up by the survey.
Julie F suggested that the Message of the Moment system could be used to give advice. Dr Pidsley
advised that our local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has done surveys at Accident and Emergency
to ask people why they have gone to A&E rather than visit a Doctor, and most people are young or
foreign and therefore either didn't understand that they could have been treated at the Surgery,
weren't registered with a Doctor, or were too impatient to wait for an appointment. The CCG is visiting
Surgeries to see about the availability of urgent appointments in view of patient A & E attendance,
which has reached unsustainably high levels. He also said that the Government is keen to encourage 7
day a week Surgeries and is funding some pilot schemes. However, doctors, like all other workers, can
only work so many hours a week, and 7/7 Surgeries would involve restructuring and massive changes to
funding.
Cyril advised that the District Patient Group will be discussing the use of a standardised survey for
all practices next year, so we may have further insight at our next meeting. Dr Pidsley advised that
there is already a standard national patient survey run by NHS England via Ipsos MORI, in which surveys
are sent out at random by post, with results available online so the District Patient Group may wish to
consider looking at that to compare local surgeries. For further information about this standard
national survey, go to http://www.gp-patient.co.uk/.
It was agreed that the Surgery will continue to work on getting more people using the SystmOnline
(about 350 are now using it), and that more appointments were being made available via this system,
so fewer patients should need to use the telephone system to book, alter or cancel appointments.
We were all rather surprised that patients regard entertaining their children as a responsibility of
the Surgery, so agreed that the Message of the Moment be used to advise parents that they are free to
bring their child's toys or books while visiting the Surgery, as long as they are quiet, unobtrusive and not
left. Similarly, adults should not hesitate to bring with them their own reading matter such as books,
magazines, papers, iPads, Kindles etc., again with the proviso that they take them away with them.
The patient comments regarding reception staff and the lateness of a doctor will be discussed in
staff meetings, and these issues do form part of the staff appraisals which are due to take place within
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the next 2-3 months. It is the Practice's aim that patients are seen on time, but sometimes
appointments do overrun and all patients receive individual medical attention as necessary. The
standard booked appointment time is 10 minutes, although a 20 minute appointment can be booked if
necessary, but sometimes a patient requires more or less time with a practitioner, and therefore
subsequent appointments can be running late or even early. A few overrunning appointments will
cause an unavoidable backlog, but patients at this Surgery are not seen by a medical practitioner who
has one eye on the clock and therefore there will always be times when a practitioner may be running
late.
Julie F has offered to formulate a draft Action Plan based on the survey results, and will
communicate with the GPs with regard to topics and suggestions.
8.0
Any Other Business
Gerald said that Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) were confusing, so Dr Pidsley
tried to explain the difference and their roles within the Health Service. After his very enlightening and
clear explanation, David commented on the advantage Bridge Surgery has in having Dr Pidsley, Chair of
the East Staffordshire CCG, as a member of the Surgery, and how efficient and well-thought of the CCG
is amongst other CCGs. Further information and details of East Staffs CCG can be found at
http://www.eaststaffsccg@nhs.uk or by emailing eaststaffsccg@nhs.co.uk.
Marion wanted to express the Group's thanks to Dr Pidsley for giving up his time to be with us, and
for giving us the benefit of his skills and experience both as a Doctor and as Chair of East Staffs CCG.
It was suggested that perhaps the Patient Group and its members should be known to patients,
perhaps by way of a newsletter available either at the Surgery or on the website. All present agreed
that we didn't want photos, but the general subject should be discussed at the next meeting, time
permitting.
9.0
Date and Time of Next Meeting
Wednesday, 5th March 2014 at 6pm. Please would attendees read these minutes and the Care
Quality Commission Inspect Report results before coming to the meeting to help avoid overrunning.
10.0 Meeting Close and Effectiveness of Meeting
"Very useful". "Very good". "On time". The meeting closed at 7.34pm.
Message of the Moment suggestions arising from this meeting:
 Bring you own reading matter and take it away with you.
 Bring something quiet and unobtrusive to entertain your child or children whilst in the waiting
room, and take it away with you.
 On planned admission to hospital, only take one or two days' medication as items will be taken
from you and destroyed.
 Check your issued medication before the leaving the pharmacist's premises and immediately
return unwanted items to the pharmacist. Tell your doctor about unwanted items.
 Only ask for repeat prescriptions of items you need. It is not necessary to ask for them all each
time.
 Try our SystmOnline to book, change or cancel appointments, order repeat prescriptions and so
much more!
 Sometimes appointments overrun causing the Clinician to be late, for which we apologise. The
notice board behind reception advises if this is the case. If you are in a hurry, reception can
rearrange your appointment.
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