COXHOE MEDICAL PRACTICE
MINUTES OF PATIENT FORUM MEETING
WEDNESDAY 13TH NOVEMBER 2013 4.30PM
Present:
Patient Representatives: Mr D Smith, Dr S Pyner, Mrs D Harris, Mr J.Hepplewhite,
Dr N Gandhi
Practice Representatives: Dr R Woods, Barbara Jones Practice Manager.
Apologies: Lynne Carrington
1.
Previous Minutes
Minutes were read as correct and apologies given.
2.
Patient Survey Results for 2013/Action Plan
Copies of patient questionnaire results and feed-back from staff meeting were
discussed with those present. Draft action plan was discussed and agreed. In general
the group thought that the results of the questionnaire were favourable for the
practice.
Group thought more advertising in waiting room/website for did not attend and
attending A/E when surgery is open. Suggest that notices for waiting room & on
website to encourage patients to feed-back their experiences to surgery. It was also
suggested that notices showing costs for attending A/E, advertising how much money
is wasted when patients could have attended surgery.
Local funding may be available to assist in the road/disabled parking at the surgery.
Barbara was still awaiting the council to attend the surgery to discuss the possibility
of disabled parking.
Denise Harris will suggest at the next Durham PRG that that positive feedback should
also be collected regarding Hospital Services, as well as negative feedback.
Barbara and Denise will meet to discuss how to encourage more patients to join the
patient reference group.
Group acknowledged that practice opening 8am until 6pm would benefit those
patients who required the GP urgently on a Friday/Saturday and would hopefully
reduce the A/E attendances.
Late night opening is also advertised in the waiting room and on practice website.
3.
North Durham Patient Reference Meeting – Feed back from Denise
Harris
Weekend Opening: - 30 practices out of 32 have signed up there were 19 last year.
The link with 111 services appears to be working better than last year. There will be
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25,000 appointments available over the 26 weeks of the scheme. 2,557 have been
filled in four weeks.
Health watch County Durham: - Is an organisation that has been contracted for a 2
year period. It has 11 board members made up of previous LINK members and some
new members, the chairperson is John Bedlington. Provides information, advice and
support about health and social care services. They gather views and experiences
from local people on the way services are delivered. They will influence how
services are set up and commissioned by having a seat on the Health and Welbeing
Board. They ensure that information and recommendations are passed to Healthwatch
England and the Care Quality Commission.
There is a group called Enter & View who are a group of volunteers within
Healthwatch Co Durham that will participate in inspection/assessments (Hospitals,
homes etc) and then report their findings to the Clinical Quality Commissioning
Board (CQC). Training commencing September 2013.
Patient Engagement: - Nicola Bailey (Chief Operating Officer North Durham CCG)
highlighted that work was ongoing on the Governing Body membership scheme to
involve a broader public membership and to develop a patient’s congress. It has been
agreed that a formal sub-committee of the CCG be formed including
public/community and patient representation. To update at future meeting once more
details available.
Sarah Knowles has been seconded to the post of Patient and Population Engagement
and is developing a Public Membership Model for engagement alongside DRCC who
has been commissioned by the CCG to do a piece of work on engagement and will
work at a community level.
Barbara will meet with Denise Harris to discuss ways to increase patient interest in
joining the Practice Patient Forum Group.
4.
Prescription Telephone Line
Dr Bhati had previously attend the Medicines Peer Review and suggested that the
practice should follow other practices, in no longer allowing patients to order their
medication over the telephone. This had only been a suggestion by the medicines
management team, but there had been a critical incident in the country. The practice
has decided to stop the use of the telephone ordering line from January 2014.
The group thought that the elderly would find this more difficult, but they understood
that the practice have to introduce new procedures when they think safety issues may
occur. The group were interested to here that we would be trying to put those patients
who would find this a problem, onto a repeat dispensing system. Information leaflets
informing of how medication can be ordered and when the telephone line will cease,
would be issued to patients on their repeat ordering slips, on the website, in the
waiting room and in the Coxhoe Chronicle.
5.
Health & Social Care Information Patient Care Data
Due to a number of complaints the government had decided that the Health & Social
Care Information Patient Care Data - Sharing of Heath Records had been postponed
until spring time. A leaflet drop would be done in January 2014 to households, to
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inform the public what to do if they wished to opt out of the forthcoming Upload of
their records in April 2014.
Barbara informed the group that she had already put notices out regarding this and
had already entered the two opt out codes onto patients computer records that had
already opted out of Summary Care Record.
MEETING CLOSED AT APPROX 6.15PM NEXT MEETING FEBRUARY 2014
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