CGMP Patient Participation Group
Patient participation group Profile 2012
In November 2012 Cricket Green Medical Practice PPG will have been running for 8 years.
The group is made up of a mix of male & female patients who have an average age of 63.5
years. The group range from having no health needs to requiring access to many patient
services.
Michael Barron is the PPG chairperson. Before retiring Michael was an ambulance person with
the London Ambulance Service for thirty years. Michael and Peter Wenham are the drivers for
Cricket Green Medical Practice car pick-up service. This is an invaluable service, set up by the
PPG, following an identified need by the practice for transporting mobile elderly patients to
the practice who would otherwise have been unable to attend. This service has helped elderly
mobile patients feel more independent by being able to get out of their homes and not being
reliant on other NHS services, for example district nursing or home visits.
Valerie Wenham is the PPG secretary. Prior to retirement Valerie managed the National
Trust’s disabled visitors section at Queen Anne’s Gate, London for 30 years. Valerie manages
the secretarial side of the group ensuring that minutes are documented and followed-up.
Pauline Blyth started her working life in the publishing industry working in Fleet Street. After
having a family she moved to the NHS working as a community equipment manager. She has
also worked as a volunteer for the British Red Cross as a first aider and in the local St
Raphael’s hospice shop.
Nicholas (Nick) Pizey is responsible for writing and publishing the twice yearly newsletter.
Nick sits on local NHS boards bringing the patient perspective to each group. In recent years
these have included the Patient Experience Group at St Helier Hospital, the Wolfson
Neurorehabilitation Unit Development Advisory Group, and for over ten years, the Better
Healthcare Closer to Home (BHCH) Programme, which aims to deliver a Local Care Centre to
Mitcham within the next six years. Nick was a Trustee for the Disability Alliance until it
recently merged with the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (RADAR) and the
National Centre for Independent Living (NCIL) to become Disability Rights UK in January
2012. Nick is now on one of the sub-committees of the new national body for disabled
people. Nick is also a Governor for the Education Unit at the Brain Injury Centre in Banstead,
a member of the Board of the Merton Centre for Independent Living. He is also a member of
LINk Merton which will become Health Watch Merton at the end of 2012.
Pamela Allen worked for 21 years as senior secretary and latterly as the Senior Planner for a
multinational company located in London and Mitcham. Management courses enabled Pamela
to not only manage the materials required but also both the production managers in Holland
and factory managers in Mitcham ensuring that components were made in time for
assembly and to satisfy customer requirements.
Pamela also held various roles in smaller industries where her roles enabled her to focus on
working with smaller teams.
Pamela then worked as a civil servant for twelve years in case working. As well as
understanding purchasing and confidentiality Pamela developed understanding surrounding
government spending and the use of tax payers’ money.
Bekir Yusuf is one of our new members and is currently working as a free-lance children and
young peoples Community Project Worker. This work is mainly in and around the Merton
locality.
Maria Bentley-Dingwall used to run the production of large-scale events for the Labour Party
at their Head Office in London. She spent 10 years working for the London Borough of
Merton, as a councillor, and was Deputy Mayor in 1992. She has a thorough knowledge of
the workings of local government and the law.
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Marjorie Robinson has enjoyed a career encompassing working in accounts/finance with;
Royal Insurance company, Blackburn, Blackburn Diocese and British Telecom (BT). Since
leaving school she has always enjoyed supporting others with health problems through the
church and family centres.
Lisa Eve is the clinician representing Cricket Green Medical Practice on the PPG. Lisa’s roles at
Cricket Green are that of Clinical Services Director and Practice Nurse. Lisa holds both a
Masters and Bachelor of Science degrees. She has also undertaken recognised degree module
courses enabling her to be an independent nurse prescriber and to manage patients with
diabetes who take tablets and/or insulin.
Cricket Green Medical Practice (CGMP) has been very lucky to have had an active PPG
running since November 2004. The PPG is currently made up of eight members who meet
face-to-face every six to eight weeks at the practice. The main aim of the PPG is to enable
CGMP patients and staff to obtain/provide the best possible healthcare through regular
meetings/discussion/surveys.
Practice profile/PPG representation
During 2011 CGMP realised that there was not enough younger patient community
represented within the current PPG. A younger patient community should include patients
who may be attending school/college or who may be working.
During October 2011 CGMP decided to undertake a recruitment drive by placing an advert on
the practice website explaining how the PPG works and that it is looking for new members to
join. As part of the recruitment drive clinicians also spoke to patients to try to identify new
members who may like to become involved with the PPG. Following the recruitment drive
three new members were recruited and all have attended their first meeting during January
2012.
CGMP undertook a review of the eight PPG members including their age profile. The average
age of the group is 63.5 years. Although two of the three new member’s ages are below 50
years the remaining six members ages range from 64 to 80 years.
Age range profile of PPG @ January 2012;
80 & over x 1,
70 to 79 & over x 1,
60 to 69 & over x 4,
50 to 59 & over x 0,
40 to 49 & over x 1,
30 to 39 & over x 1.
Lisa Eve is the practice representative and a proposal was made at one of the weekly CGMP
management meetings to set up a virtual PPG (vPPG). It was envisaged that this group will
be made up of number of patients aged below 30 years who currently attend
school/college/work. The group will be an email community and will complement the existing
face-to-face PPG. The aim of the group will be to seek patient opinion and involve patients in
some of the decisions surrounding the range and quality of services provided by CGMP.
During mid January 2012 CGMP placed paper and electronic adverts, (Appendix 1) for new
vPPG members, on our practice TV, website and notice boards. The advert was emailed to
the PPG chair and secretary for comment and agreement. Both members reported that the
advert was clear in its wording and were happy to have a vPPG to compliment the existing
face-to-face PPG.
By beginning of March 2012 CGMP had recruited three vPPG members. All three members are
women. One is age 26 years, 28 years and 17 years. The 26 year old is currently out of work
but actively seeking employment, the 28 year old has a young family and is about to return
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to work as a part time chef and the 17 year old is studying for her A levels. CGMP still needs
to recruit younger males to join the vPPG group and the search continues.
Annual practice survey
During December 2011 CGMP management team started to consider what needed to be
reviewed for the annual patient survey. A number of themes were identified by the practice
which would also feed into local work streams within the new Merton Commissioning Group
and NHS South West London to meet elements of the local Quality Innovation Productivity &
Prevention (QIPP) plans (Appendix 2).
Six main areas were identified by the practice for consideration as requiring review
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Clinical care,
Getting an appointment,
Reception issues,
Opening times,
Parking, or
Any other area not mentioned.
The practice representative for the PPG (Lisa Eve) emailed and wrote to the PPG members to
reach agreement on identified issues, that the PPG indicated had priority, which would then
help to shape the annual patient survey. Eight PPG members were contacted (Appendix 3).
CGMP received three emailed responses from PPG members and from these responses clinical
care was voted as the number one priority to survey.
Background information to support the survey
Two of the local NHS South West London QIPP work-streams are;
“reducing avoidable A&E attendances” & “developing models of care encompassing the
diverse health needs of our populations, for example our new and migrant population”.
There is also currently running a combined Sutton & Merton Accident & Emergency (A&E)
project where a senior nursing team review local hospital A&E attendance data in order to
identify patients who may have attended A&E with minor ailments who could have been seen
by other local appropriate health care providers, other than at A&E. These patients are then
contacted by a senior nurse from the team by phone to identify why they attended A&E and
if there had been any problems trying to be seen by their own GPs. The patients are given
information about local “out of hour’s health-care providers” and signposted to more
appropriate health care providers rather than using A&E inappropriately. On reviewing the
A&E data, members from the CGMP management team noted that a group of registered
patients may be seeking help/advice from A&E inappropriately with a number of these being
from new populations to the UK.
CGMP management team felt that a survey, to identify how registered patients access
medical/nursing care when the surgery is closed, would help the management team to
improve existing services and identify if further appropriate education/care planning may be
required for specific patient individuals/groups.
The survey questionnaire was devised with help from Smart Monkey survey design (an online development tool). The proposed survey was emailed to PPG members for their
comments and a few minor wording adjustments were made.
How the survey was undertaken
In order to obtain the views of registered patients the PPG were asked to help distribute and
collect the patient survey (Appendix 4). The dates set for the survey were Monday 5th
February and Monday February 20th.
A paper survey would enable CGMP management team to obtain views from a sample of its
8,819 registered patients. It was planned to distribute the patient survey to at least 50
patients from our practice population which would provide response information from 0.6%
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of our practice population. During the two days 84 survey questionnaires were distributed
and returned.
Survey findings and conclusion.
A full survey summary can be found in Appendix 5.
Eighty four survey questionnaires were distributed and returned. The responses, when
reviewed, revealed that a more in depth qualitative survey may need to be considered to
assess appropriateness of responses dependant on specific medical conditions. The full
survey results and conclusion were emailed to the PPG chair and secretary, to be added to
the PPG March meeting in order to discuss and identify an action plan to take forward. The
survey findings and conclusion were discussed at a CGMP management meeting on 21st
February 2012 and the PPG members meeting on 7th March 2012.
Survey action plan
Four PPG members and Lisa Eve (practice representative) met to discuss and debate the
survey findings and an action plan was formalised. It was decided not to consider
undertaking a quantitative survey at this moment in time as it was felt this would be very
time consuming and the time taken may not necessarily benefit patient care. The main
identified element of the action plan is as follows;
CGMP needs to advertise different/appropriate ways of accessing health-care, when the
surgery is closed.
Specific patient information needs to devised to meet this action plan by;
1. Information being disseminated to patients regarding using local pharmacists to
assist with minor ailment advice/treatment,
2. The out-of-hours service needs to be advertised to include how and when to use the
service.
3. When and how to use NHS direct.
This advertising can be undertaken by improving existing patient information on the practice
website and the in-house waiting room TV screen. CGMP management team are meeting
their web site designer during March 2012 to discuss ways of improving the practice web site.
These improvements will include making available all the information identified above.
It is envisaged that the website update will be completed by the end of May 2012 and that
specific patient information will be advertised on the in-house waiting room TV screens by the
end of April 2012. NHS London will be contacted to see if there is available standardised
patient information, with regards to accessing other appropriate health care providers when
surgeries are closed, which could be adapted to meet the needs of CGMP patient population.
The availability of this type of information may enable the practice website and in-house TV
screens to be updated before the end of April and May 2012 respectively.
CGMP opening
The practice is
Monday
8am-8pm
Extended
Hours
Clinicians
Dr Chana
hours
open six days per week as follows;
Tuesday
Wednesday Thursday
8am-8pm
8am-7pm
8am-8pm
Extended
Extended
Hours
Hours
Clinicians
Clinicians
Dr Rees
Dr Otley
Health Care
Assistant
(HCA)
Nurse Lisa
Eve
Nurse Jennie
Moorhouse
Friday
8am-7pm
Saturday
9am-12mid-day
Extended Hours
Clinicians
All Doctors
available on a
rota
All Nurses & HCA
available on a
rota
Appendices
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Appendix 1.
PPG member advert
Cricket Green Medical Practice (CGMP) has a patient participation group (PPG).
The aim of this group is to seek patient opinion and involve patients in some of the decisions
surrounding the range and quality of services provided by the practice.
The PPG currently consists of eight members (male and female) who meet at the practice
every six to eight weeks.
The practice wishes to seek more patient opinion by developing a virtual PPG (vPPG) to
include patients from different backgrounds, age groups and ethnicities. The vPPG will work
as an email community and will complement our existing PPG.
If you would like to be involved in this vPPG please could you give your name, email and
telephone number to either one of our receptionists or to any of our clinicians.
We very much look forward to hearing from you.
Lisa Eve
Clinical Services Director
Appendix 2.
NHS South West London local QIPP plans
 Ensuring a patient centred approach to planned care, in particular the development
of integrated approaches to the management of long term conditions such as the
streamlining of hip and knee pathways
 Achieving cost savings by reducing avoidable GP referrals, A&E attendances, the
volume of emergency admissions through improvements in rapid response and
improvements to key community services such as community nursing
 Developing integrated primary care teams including primary , community, mental
health and social care services
 Improving End of Life care through the continued implementation of the End of Life
Care strategy and best practice
Developing models of care encompassing the diverse health needs of our populations, for
example our new and migrant population’
Appendix 3.
PPG annual survey planning letter
Dear Patient Participation Group member,
We, at Cricket Green Medical Practice, are planning our next annual survey. To ensure that
we ask the right questions, we would like to know what you think should be our key priorities
when it comes to looking at the services we provide both to you and others in the practice.
What do you think are the most important issues on which we should consult our patients?
For example, which of the following do you think we should focus on;
1. Clinical care,
2. Getting an appointment,
3. Reception issues,
4. Opening times,
5. Parking, or
6. Any other area not mentioned.
Please could you let us which issue you would like us to focus on.
We need your responses by Monday 30th January at the latest.
Once your responses are received we will review them and focus our patient survey on the
most popular response/s.
The subsequent survey findings will then be discussed with yourselves, via the Patient
Participation Group (PPG), in order to reach an agreement on potential changes that may
need to be made to Cricket Green services.
We will then be able to agree an action plan with the PPG to seek agreement to implement
potential changes.
We very much look forward to receiving your responses.
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Appendix 4
Cricket Green Medical Practice: Patient Survey February 2012
1. We are currently trying to find out how our patients manage to see a doctor
or nurse when our surgery is closed.
2. The results of this questionnaire will be used to help us plan clinics and
staffing in the future.
3. Please could we ask you to take a few minutes to complete this short
questionnaire.
A. What is your main spoken language?
B. How old are you?
C. How long have you lived in the UK?
When the Doctors surgery is closed (between 8pm to 8am and at
weekends/bank holidays) and you need to see a Doctor or Nurse, what do you
do? (You may choose more than one option).
A.  Wait until surgery is next open and try to book an appointment.
B.  Seek advice from local pharmacist.
C.  Go to a local Accident & Emergency department.
D.  Go to a local Walk-in-Centre.
E.  Phone NHS direct.
F.  Phone the out-of-hours service.
G.  Don’t know.
Please hand this completed questionnaire to the receptionist or the
doctor/nurse who you are seeing today.
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Appendix 5
Survey questionnaires summary
Total number of survey questionnaires handed out
Total number of survey questionnaires completed
Total average age of patients surveyed
Responses to question A “Wait until surgery is open and try to book an
appointment”
Responses to question B “Seek advice from local pharmacist”
Responses to question C “Go to a local Accident & Emergency department”
Responses to question D “Go to a local Walk-in-Centre”
Responses to question E “Phone NHS direct”
Responses to question F “Phone the out-of-hours service”
Responses to question G “Don’t know”
Main spoken language of survey respondents
Not known
English
Creole
Lithuania
Somalia
Polish
Guyana
Numbers
= 84
= 84
= 51 yrs
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
44
8
42
55
21
12
2
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
01
74
01
01
01
05
01
Survey Evaluation
As patients were given the opportunity to tick more than one option (from A-G) it
is difficult to fully evaluate the survey responses. However out of 84 responses;
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
23.91%
4.3%
22.82%
29.89%
11.41%
6.52%
1.08%
This survey was a quantitative survey showing where patients go to seek help
and advice from other health-care providers when the surgery is closed.
The survey demonstrated a potential lack of patient understanding regarding the
availability of local pharmacist advice, the Out-of-hours service and NHS direct.
The survey revealed a larger number of patients attending either the local Walkin-Centre and/or A&E departments. These latter attendances may be appropriate
for their clinical need, e.g., chest pain.
Conclusion
A more in depth qualitative survey may need to be considered to assess
appropriateness of responses dependant on specific medical conditions.
CGMP needs to advertise more appropriate ways of accessing health-care, when
surgery is closed, via local pharmacist minor ailment advice, out-of-hours and
NHS direct. This advertising can be undertaken by improving existing advertising
on the practice website and TV screen (on the 1st floor waiting room) to include;
management of minor ailments, how and when to contact the of-hours service,
when to seek health advice from a pharmacist and NHS direct and what A&E is
for and not for.
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