Bowburn Medical Centre
Patient Participation Report
2013-2014
This year has been a particularly challenging year for the practice team with all of the
changes that have taken place within the NHS and in particular in Primary Care. It
has been a year of gaining understanding of all of the newly formed organisations
that we now are required to relate to since the demise of the Primary Care Trusts
and the forming of NHS England.
The key areas of the new NHS organisation for primary care in the simplest
explanation are:
NHS England the overarching organisation which basically oversees and governs
the implementation of Primary Care.
The Area Teams which manage and implement the directions and performance
monitoring of Primary Care under the umbrella of NHS England
Clinical Commissioning Groups the local representation of Primary Care with the
responsibilities for holding the primary care financial budgets and commissioning the
services to the local population that they are responsible for.
The North Durham Clinical Commissioning Group is made up of the following
localities now known as constituencies which are:
Derwentside Constituency
Durham Constituency
Chester-le-Street constituency
made up of Derwentside practices
made up of Durham practices
made up of Chester-le-Street practices
In spite of facing the many new challenges it has been a year of progress as we
have used the Productive General Practice Programme to review the current
practice with the aim to release more time to become more productive as a practice
team.
Productive General Practice is part of the Quality Improvement programme that the
practice signed up to. The main reason is that PGP provides a structured
programme along with excellent tools to facilitate improvements in the practice.
Some of the tools we used were around measuring our current baseline, in other
words what was our starting point to help us understand what is currently happening
in the practice.
The importance of this was to ensure that we as a practice function in the provision
of our services to ensure that we can manage the demand and give the highest
standard of patient experience possible so excellent patient satisfaction is the result,
along with the delivery of an excellent and safe patient focused service.
Bowburn Medical Centre
Patient Participation Report
2013-2014
In order to do that we needed to demonstrate that we are competent and safe at
every level in the practice and to do that means there is an important individual
accountability for every member of our team.
Due to the changes now in place it was paramount that we carried out this review to
assess our practice and ensure we meet the standards which best suit our patients
needs ensure we carry out their care in the best professional manner possible.
The PGP modules we used to do this were.
1. Knowing how we are doing
2. Involving patients in improvements
1. Knowing how we are doing
To improve upon the services we offer we must have some idea of how we currently
operate and we needed to collect baseline information from every aspect of the
practice and its staff to give us an idea of the target areas we need to change or
adapt to enable us to move forward and achieve our aspirations.
To facilitate this we worked together as a team we needed to:
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Collect the required information
Collate the required information
Discuss the results and findings
Acknowledge our strengths
Adapt and improve our weakest areas with involvement and input from all of
the practice team.
Patient Survey
As part of the programme we carried out a Patient Survey which gained insight from
our patients as to how they felt that they were respected and valued by the practice
team.
Results of Productive
general practice Patient Survey.pdf
We identified from the survey that overall our patients felt respected, cared for,
valued and involved in their care.
Bowburn Medical Centre
Patient Participation Report
2013-2014
Patient Reference Group
Apart from our virtual patient group we have had a meeting with 2 patients who
contacted the surgery wanting to be involved in a Patient Group that met at the
surgery. And our first meeting took place on the 9th October 2013.
We looked at the Role of a member of the patient group which is laid out below
1. Role description of a member
A member is a champion on behalf of the patients of Bowburn Medical Centre,,
providing reasoned and objective opinions. It is a voluntary role which aims to bring
a reality check to health professionals and managers and make sure that the needs
and view of our patients, and carers are considered at all appropriate stages of
service provision.
Responsibilities
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Regularly attend the Patient Representative Group
Read all relevant paperwork in advance of meetings
Contribute positively to the discussions of the Patient Representative Group
Share local knowledge, experiences and feedback from other groups and
networks relevant to discussions
Reflect on the potential impact of project plans and proposals discussed at the
meeting give honest and impartial feedback
Ask questions to clarify things and to usefully explore the practicality of plans
Constructively challenge our thinking and decision making in the interest of
the patients.
Refrain from discussing personal medical problems or revealing personal
details about others
Communicate effectively with other members of the Patient Representative
Group
Accurately inform and update groups and networks which the member may be
connected to about the practice and its progress
Share local knowledge, experiences and feedback from other groups and
networks that the member may be involved with, relevant to the discussion
Encourage a plain English approach at all times
Understand the need for confidentiality in some circumstances
Skills Required
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Effective communication skills
Listening skills
Confidence to give opinions and take part in constructive debate
Bowburn Medical Centre
Patient Participation Report
2013-2014
Essential Requirements
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2.
What is a member
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3.
It is a voluntary role which aims to bring a ‘reality check’ and critical challenge
to the members of the Primary care Staff at the surgery.
Be able to bring patient issues that need to be considered by the practice
team.
Be involved in helping to shape change and development of services by
giving the real patient perspective.
What a member is not
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4.
A means of raising individual issues and complaints. A member should not be
a ‘single issue’ person and should be able to consider a wide range of topics.
A platform for individual, organisational or political gain.
Benefits of being a member
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5.
Is a patient at the Bowburn Medical Centre
Is able to attend most meetings
Able to gain greater knowledge about the NHS, local NHS organisations and
their relationships and the reasons behind health and social care decisions.
Opportunity to understand NHS commissioning and service development
processes.as it impacts on the patient population of the practice.
Enhancement to other work or local groups or organisations that he/she may
be part of.
A sense of satisfaction in helping to improve services for the patients at
Bowburn Medical Centre.
Confidentiality Agreement
As a patient representative it is possible that you will hear or see confidential
information.
This information may include personal details about patients, their families or NHS
staff. It may also include details about future plans, projects or money matters.
It is your responsibility not to:
 Talk or write about information that you see or hear in your role
Bowburn Medical Centre
Patient Participation Report
2013-2014
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Pass written details to anyone other than appropriate medical or professional
staff
If you do not know who is an appropriate person, you must seek advice from another
member or your contact person. If you are uncomfortable or unhappy about
anything your see or hear, please speak to your contact person.
I have read and agree with the above statement about confidentiality of information.
I understand that I can speak to the Practice Manager about anything I am not
comfortable with.
I understand that I could be removed from my role as a patient representative if I
break the terms of this Agreement.
Name: …………………………………………………………………………………………
Signed: ………………………………………… Date: …………………………………….
Below is a copy of the minutes from that meeting:
Minutes of PRG Meeting 9th October 2013
The practice has mainly had a virtual PRG and communications have been made by e-mail
however we have now managed to recruit 2 patients who are willing to meet face to face at
the practice and we had our first meeting arranged for today Wednesday 9th October 2013.
Agenda:
1. There was an initial discussion about their expectations as patients of the role of a
member of a patient reference group and how this dovetailed with the Practices
expectation of a patient representative of a PRG.
2. Both representatives had a look at the role description of a member and agreed that
they were happy with the content and they both signed up to it along with signing a
confidentiality agreement.
3. Discussion took place about the practice survey and report for 2012-2013 along with
the action plan (all of which are contained in the attached Patient Participation report)
4. MK explained how the surgery team were involved in the Productive General
Practice Programme and asked if they would be willing to work with the practice on
the agreed development areas that the team were going to be looking at as patient
champions for this. Both members were very happy to do this so it was agreed that
when appropriate they would meet with the practice team to discuss any proposals
and give the patient perspective to those proposals before implementation was
agreed.
The areas that the practice have agreed to look at as part of future development are:
Bowburn Medical Centre
Patient Participation Report
2013-2014
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Involving patients in Improvement.
Improving Access
Improving telephone access
Introduction of “Touch Screen” sign in for patients.
The meeting then closed with the agreement that the next meeting would be
arranged to discuss the outcomes of the above when feedback was available to get
the patient perspective on any proposed implementation of new developments.
Both members agreed that contact to arrange meetings could be done via their email. In addition MK said she would contact the patient who also agreed to be a
Patient Champion to invite him to the next meeting.
The date of next meeting to be arranged.
It is proposed that we meet again during April 2014 when we hope we will have some
additional members willing to attend the group. We will inform all of our patients of
the date when arranged with an invitation to express their willingness to attend.