North House Surgery Patient Participation Group

North House Surgery Patient Participation Group

Minutes of Meeting held 13th November 2014

Present
Jane Clayton (JCL)
Janet Cornes(JCOR )
Brewis Henderson (BH)
Jean Cowey (JCO)
Sandra Whitfield (SW)
Margaret Compton (MC)
Ken Davison (KD)
Veronica Griffin (VG) (Chair and Minutes)
On Behalf of the Practice
Denise Simpson (DS)
Lynn Blair (LB) / Apologies
Dorothy Winters
Rick Clayton
Jake Harley
Rose Seabury
Item No. / Description / Actions
1 / Minutes of previous meeting
The minutes were accepted
2 / National Association of PPGs
SW gave an overview of the National Association of PPGs website. Without membership only limited access is available.
The benefits of the site are –

• A Communications toolkit
• Best practice examples
• Top tips leaflet
• 21 ways to make a practice thrive
• Monthly bulletins
• Good examples for contact with virtual groups to enable input from working people and young people, etc.

The practice thought that membership would be a good idea and have agreed to pay the £60 first year membership and £40 per year every following year. / Action required
3 / Flu Vaccinations
The PPG were tasked with looking at alternative ways to get the message across to patients about the flu vaccination each year without the use of individual letters to eligible patients. The only alternative that could be possible is to use the local free press.
SW has already made contact with the free press and it sounded positive. This route will be investigated for use next year. SW to manage this on behalf of the group.
KD thought we, the PPG, should be promoting flu vacs to be taken at the surgery rather than at pharmacies. The practice cannot legislate where a patient has their flu jab so has asked the PPG to be politically aware that by doing this, putting up posters etc, could create complaints to the practice from the pharmacies regardless of it being the PPG that initiated it.
Flu vaccinations at home
LB informed the group that the District Nurses are provided with a list of patients needing to have their flu vac at home.
For patients that have just become housebound, or are having a condition flare-up will have had their letter of eligibility for the flu jab. Because the patient is aware that they should have a flu jab it is expected that the patient would make contact with the surgery to arrange a flu vac at home. The practice does not always have any way of knowing about such patients.
Flu Vaccination Statistics

• Currently 2546 vaccinations completed as at the time of the meeting. Normally approximately 3,500 at this time of year
• A major push will be made in January to pick up those eligible but not yet had the vaccination

/ Action required
4 / Increasing Patient Awareness of Services Available for Older People and Disabled
The group agreed to invite speakers from Age UK and Durham Carers to talk about the services available to elderly and disabled people to allow them to stay in their home and enable them to enjoy a full life. Similar to the work being done by Dorset Partnership for Older People Programme. The PPG would like to promote these services to the patients of North House surgery which should provide the following benefits:

• Reduce depression
• Allow patients to remain in their home
• Reduce pressure on the practice, appointments etc
• Reduce hospital admissions
• A good use of the PPG

Age UK
JC has contacted her contact in Age UK who has passed the message on to the relevant person. JC is awaiting a reply.
JC informed the group that Age UK are doing a free coffee morning on 27th November at 10:00 – 12:00 at the new Fire Station in Crook. KD will put this info on the PPG noticeboard in the surgery waiting room.
Durham Carers
SW has contacted Durham Carers who are happy to come along and talk to the group.
Jane and Sandra to arrange dates for future meetings. Each speaker asked to do a 20 minute talk with 10 minutes for questions. / Action required
Action required
5 / Workshop to Discuss and Arrange Ideas for Patient Interaction
Jane, Ken, Brewis, Margaret and Jean agreed to meet at Jean’s home on 26th November to look at arranging sessions to talk to patients in the waiting room and the subjects for these sessions.
The dates of the agreed sessions to be provided to Lynn for the practice newsletter due in January.
The workshop will provide the dates for these sessions to the practice and the practice will arrange the waiting room to accommodate these sessions. / Action required
Action required
Action required
6 / PPG Finance
The PPG requested a small budget for the PPG. The practice agreed to look at case by case requests to finance any work or projects by the PPG and to finance such work where it is feasible to do so. / Action required
7 / PPG Notice Board Items
The following items need to be put on the PPG noticeboard –

• Age UK Free Coffee Morning – at new Fire Station, 27th Nov 10:00 – 12:00. Jean to provide leaflet for noticeboard.
• Online Prescription Ordering/Online Appointments Learning Session dates

/ Action required
8 / Practice Clinical system changeover to Systm1
The practice is currently deeply involved in the preparations for the system changeover. The practice will try every way it can to keep patients informed. Notices in the waiting room, Jayex board where possible, website.
The following will be affected during the changeover period –

• Online prescriptions will cease for a period from 10th December to mid to late January
• Routine clinics will not be operating during this time, e.g. diabetes clinic, asthmas clinic
• Pre-bookable appointments from 17th December

The practice will look at putting a message on the online prescription ordering/ appointments page of the website to inform patients that there will be an interruption of service and the potential dates. / Action required
9 / Online Repeat Prescription Ordering/Online Appointment Learning Sessions
KD has put together a timetable of future learning sessions that he is happy to provide. Due to the system changeover taking place over the next few months causing the service to be offline for a while, these sessions will begin again at the end of January.
A new presentation and step by step guide will be required as the new system’s screen will look different.
KD will be asking patients to provide feedback regarding alternative dates and times requests for these sessions to be made via the suggestion box. / Action required
10 / PPG Attending Practice Training In-Day
Lyn will provide the PPG with the dates of the practice training in surgery days. The PPG will agree to attend one of these sessions to introduce themselves to the practice GPs and staff, and to provide a talk about what the PPG has done to date and its aspirations for the future. / Action required
11 / GP to Attend Meetings
It was agreed with the practice that a GP will try to attend the PPG meeting if only for a short period of time. / Action required
12 / Further Practice Updates

• Systm1 preparation in full swing now and the practice is extremely busy with these
• Flooring quotes have been obtained and the practice have now commissioned for the flooring to be replaced in the consulting rooms, starting early Jan. The consulting room floors are the priority and due to the high cost the rest of the building will be completed over 3 to 5 years.
• The telephone system has had issues in that the supplier wanted to invoke a high ‘get out during contact period’ fee. Following negotiations with a new supplier the current supplier has agreed a free ‘get out’ clause.
• Staffing – following sickness, leavers and shorter hours the practice has been suffering staffing issues. An advert for another GP is out now and there has been a little interest but nothing concrete. A new phlebotomist has been employed – currently 2 days per week but will become full time in December. Two admin apprentices have been employed who will be trained in all areas and should help alleviate pressure for staff.
• Weekend surgeries will continue until the end of March.
• Comments made on the Choices website will picked up in January as the system changeover must take priority for now. It will then be looked at once a month.

13 / Soft Intelligence
Lynn asked anyone who has any ‘soft intelligence’ to report it to the practice.
‘Soft Intelligence’ being defined as any knowledge of North House Surgery patients experiencing any problems or difficulties with health/care services, including hospital and clinics.
To be discussed at the next meeting. / Action required
14 / Warfarin
The practice were asked if there has been any changes to the handling of Warfarin books as it appears that the books are being given back with prescriptions (however, this may be an isolated incident). LB will check for the next meeting. / Action required
15 / Feedback from Durham Dales Patient Representative Group (DDPRG)
This meeting is attended by representatives from each of the individual practice PPGs in the Durham Dales Area and members of the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). It is a prime source of information regarding the practices that other PPG are engaging in. CCG commissioning and how it affects the practices and their patients. It also a means of engaging with the CCG to state the needs of the patients and be a voice for the patients in the Durham Dales area. The PRG also meets with the full commissioning locality every 3 months to further share information. The locality is made up of Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield.
Some of the issues currently under discussion –

• Lack of clinics in Bishop Auckland
• Issues with Ophthalmology
• Transport to and from hospitals
• Hospital Discharges
• Use of the Urgent Care Centre – people going there when they are unable to get a GP appointment. Currently at a cost of £62k for commissioners.

Brewis is the representative at this meeting and Ken has agreed to attend when he can.
16 / Date and time of next meeting
19th February 2015 at 9:30 am North House Surgery

Page 1