GORING AND WOODCOTE MEDICAL PRACTICE
PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP
Notes of PPG Meeting held on Tuesday, 5 December 2017 at Goring Surgery
Present: Jeremy Hutchins,Pat Ankerson, Geoff Braham, Penny & Guy Gilks, Rhys Hamilton, Don Harrison, Anne Munn, Vicky Pocock, Carol Quinton, Robin & Sheila Seymour, Brooke Ward,
In attendance - Julia Beasley, Dr Jessica Reed and Ann Hart, Leader of the Carers Group - attending in place of Christine Tucker.
1Apologies - Christine Tucker (who is recovering well from her accident)
2Minutes of LastMeeting (28 September 2017) – Guy mentioned that in Minute 6, Jeremy had requested reports to be submitted for circulation to Committee members in advance of Committee meetings so that they could study them and prepare queries they may wish to raise. He had only received two reports so wondered if the request had since been shelved. Jeremy confirmed that it still stands and asked for advance reports to be submitted. Minutes then agreed.
3Matters Arising:
1Youth Involvement – There had been no feedback from Andy Goode concerning his meeting with the Oratory School. Julia was askedto remind him this was still outstanding andrequesthim to report back to her in time for the next Committee meeting. Action – Julia/Andy
Guy reported on the Sonning Common Practice’s Youth initiative. They have not been very successful in establishing a link with Henley College. Benson Practice also unsuccessful in their bid to engage youth. Rhys said his wife, Vicky, who is on the board of Governors at Langtree School has volunteered to raise this issue with them again.
2Appointments Committee - Julia reported on the meeting of 17 November, at which Jeremy, Penny and Sheila were present, together with some members of the reception team, Julia and Ed Capo-Bianco. The next meeting is in April 2018. Release of more appointments, particularly 24 and 48 hour appointments, currently under discussion. Julia reported a slight drop in the number of DNAs. Jeremy asked for this to be an item in the Practice News at each Committee meeting. Action – Julia
At that meeting Jeremy had drawn attention to the apparent lack of available
appointments bookable on line and Julia had promised to look at this. He
said that the situation did not appear to have improved and there was still alack of appointments available up to Christmas. Julia said she would investigate this with the team but noted that appointments were being released on a daily basis. Action - Julia
Also reported was the proposal to develop a new, more user-friendly website. The websites of the Wokingham Practice and of Strawberry Hill, Newbury had been shown at the meeting. Members of the Committee said they would like the opportunity to comment on the design proposals forthe new website. See also item 5 below
3E-mail communications with the Practice – Adocument covering
the ways of communicating with the Practice is required. This will be done once the new website is in action so to add the additional features we hope it will offer patients for communicating with the Practice. Action - Julia
4 Charity Donations – Jeremy had received an enquiry as to how a
donation could be made to the Medical Equipment Fund. Julia will write something about this in the monthly newsletter. Action - Julia
4Practice News:
See Julia’s report – already circulated - Appendix 1
5Report from OCCG and SELF Meetings
Jeremy’s report had been circulated in advance of the meeting – no queries raised –
Appendix 2
6Development of the Practice Website
Geoff is working with Practice on this and had circulated his report in advance of the meeting – Appendix 3. He had met with Julia, Vikki and Ed. The websites at the Wokingham Practice and at Strawberry Hill – both designed by the same website provider–were studied and are the favoured models at present. They will investigate options suitable for our Practice. Julia to discuss with the Practice Manager at Strawberry Hill and report back She is also investigating funding for the new website. Ongoing. Action – Julia/Geoff/Agenda
7 The Future Health & Wellbeing Project
Following the decision by the Practice not to go ahead with plans for the “Altogether Better”. Project, Jeremy said that a decision was now needed on whether the PPG should go ahead with the Health and Wellbeing project for our Practice area, discussed earlier this year.
It seems that the Q1 Hub, recently opened in the Arcade in Goring, is being set up to do precisely what we intended, although with Q1 there will probably be some cost involved. We would be duplicating what they are offering and therefore it does not seem worth pursuing. Ann Hart said she understands that care products, such as incontinence pads, will be available for sale. She also understands that the Hub is being run separately from the Q1 Care Agency (to be confirmed at the meeting, see below). After considerable discussion it was voted unanimously that we would not go ahead with plans for the Health and Wellbeing Project as the PPG were uncertain as to the Practice’s plans going forward with regard to the new Care Hub. Julia has set up a meeting with the Practice and Melanie Meads (Manager of the Care Hub) to understand what they plan to offer to the local community and their links to Q1 Care. The Hub is not expected to cover the Woodcote area– this to be confirmed at the meeting.
8Locality Plans for Primary Care
Jeremy reported on the recent interesting meeting in Wallingford at which Ed had given the presentation on the locality plans. Several members of our PPG attended. Each table was provided with a facilitator and opportunities given to comment on the proposed plans and add any other items which people felt should be included. These have since been incorporated into the latest plan - now on the website - on which members of the public are invited to comment by17 December.
9Patient Access Software Training
Jeremy said Carol had done a superb job on setting this up. However, patients are not coming forward for training! We appear to have raised some interest, however, as Yvonne has reported a rise in the number signing up for on-line access. It may be that having done so they have found it not too onerous to set up themselves without assistance. Any training done by the PPG will be in either Woodcote or Goring Libraries. Patients who have signed up for on-line appointments, prescriptions, etc., need to sign up again in order to gain access to their medical records. To do this they will be required to produce a passport, driving licence, or similar, and will then be set up with a password.
10Carers Group Update:
In Christine’s absence, Jeremy invited Ann Hart to report.He congratulated her on receiving the Carer of the Year Award from Carers Oxfordshire. Jessica had attended the last Carers meeting. The new Q1 Hub has opened its premises in the Arcade in Goring and the Carers Group will monitor developments. In reply to a question Ann said she was not aware of a Carers Group operating in Woodcote, but a Carer has attended a Goring meeting in the past. Julia said an audit of Carers could be arranged and Chantelle, as Carers Champion, would cover any in Woodcote as well as Goring. Information about the Goring Carers Group is shown on the TV information screens at both Surgeries.
Annand Pat had recently attended the Carers Conference organised by Carers Oxfordshire.
12MIGGS Update
Brooke said that the main focus is still the bid for the pavement in Wallingford Road near the Station to be widened. John Boler, Brooke and possibly Rhys are attending a meeting on this on 21 December with the new Sponsor Project Manager of Network Rail.
13Open Meeting Review
The Open Meeting held last month wasvery successful and feedback very good. Jeremy asked for suggestions for the next open meeting - at Woodcote Village Hall. Mental Health was suggested as a possible topic, although care would need to be taken in how this was presented. Jessica thought it unlikely those with mental health problems would attend. Second suggestion was a Health Fair,involving staff from the Practice, and mental health could be considered as part of this. Agreed Guy should form a subcommittee. Carol to book Woodcote village Hall, if available, on suggested date of 30 June 2018. Sub-committee to report progress at the next meeting. Action – Guy/Sub-committee
14Use of GENIE for communication with PPG Virtual Members
Jeremy would like PPG to consider transferring our virtual membership e-mails to GENIE (Goring Electronic News & information Exchange, organised by Ron Bridle and a small team of volunteers - backed by the Parish Council). GENIE has capacity to take on the distribution of any information PPG needs to send out. Permission would first need to be sought from thoseon the PPG e-mail list to agree to the change and opt in. It is an easy matter for anyone to “unsubscribe” at any time. GENIE is fully compliant with Data Protection and the new regulations coming in next year. Agreed to Jeremy’s proposal to pursue this further. Action – Jeremy
15Any Other Business
1Neighbourhood Plan –Geoff asked what is the impact of the neighbourhood plan and extra housing on the Practice. Penny and Jeremy told of their past
attempts to engage in discussions about this with the GN Planners but had been ignored. Theunderstanding is that thePractice does have the capacity to absorb the extra patient population, but surgeryspace would perhaps be an issue. If the Parish Council move from the Fire Stationpremises next door to the Surgery - as has been suggested in the GNP Strategy Projects – Action 05 and 06 - the Partners may well be interested in acquiring the premises to extend into. It was pointed out that concern already exists from patients that the increase in numbers on doctors’ lists will result in even longer waiting time for appointments.
2NAPP Group of 100 – Sheila was not aware if the PPG had proceeded any
further in applying to become a member of this Group. Agreed she would look into this and report back to Jeremy. He is interested in our PPG becoming a member of the Patients Association and will follow this up – Appendix 4. Action –
Sheila/Jeremy
3 Don is continuing to be plagued with requests to go over to Electronic
Prescribing. Julia and Jessica said the Practice is not intending to opt into
this - it has itsdrawbacks and is not considered fit for purpose.
4 PPG Noticeboards – Carol asked for suggestions for the noticeboards as
she would like to organise these in advance of her being away in the New
Year. Suggestions included a list of topics already discussed at Open Meetings- and requestingpatients’ ideas for further topics, patients’ access to their records, photographs of Committee members. Action – Carol
5 Pat had received a complaint from a lady with a chronic condition who had
been very anxious to see her named doctor but could not be given an
appointment for three to four weeks – she did not want to see an alternative doctor. Pat does not know the eventual outcome as she has not been contacted since. Julia asked Pat if she would encourage the patient to contact her at the Surgery. Action –
Pat
6 Anne Munn repeated her previous request that the Goring Heath Newsletter
be included when information is sent out to local publications. Jeremy said
they have been included but he has received no acknowledgment and articlessubmittedhave not been published. The explanation may be that as it is a three-monthly publication, ourinformation may be out of date by the time their next edition goes to press.
16Date of Next Meeting – Tuesday, 30 January 2018– 6.45 for 7 p.m. at Goring
Surgery
Dates for the Diary of future meetings in 2018
27 March,
29 May,
31 July,
25 September,
27 November.
APPENDIX 1
Goring & Woodcote Medical Practice
NEWS FROM THE PRACTICE – December 2017
The Practice will close at 6.30 p.m. on Friday 22 December and open again at 8.00 a.m. on Wednesday 27 December. It will also be closed on Monday 1 January 2018. During this time, if patients need help or advice, they should contact the NHS 111 service by dialling 111.
To confirm, Dr Lamb’s patients have now been booked onto the list of our new Partner, Dr Jessica Reed.
Dr Angela Adams, who has been on maternity leave, returns to the Practice on13 March 2018.
We will shortly be starting our programme of flooring replacement at the Practice, starting with the Woodcote Surgery. We will be replacing carpet with hard-wearing, non-slip and waterproof cushion flooring. We will be starting with Dr Ed Capo-Bianco’s room as his carpet is “on its last legs”!
The Practice hopes to shortly move to a new website which will be more interactive and use friendly for our patients.
We still have supplies of vaccines to immunise patients against flu, pneumonia and shingles. Patients should contact the Practice to book an appointment if they believe they are eligible. Please call reception to check and if in doubt, our team will check with a patient’s doctor.
We will shortly be having air-conditioning installed in our treatment rooms which we know our patients and staff will greatly appreciate in the warm summer months.
The team are currently looking at ways that we can work smarter (but not harder!) in 2018. This goes across all disciplines and is so important with workload and pressure increasing. We need to ensure that we remain viable and fully staffed, particularly at a time when some other Practices around the country are closing.
Dr Morris (Partner) and Julia Beasley (Practice Manager) visited residents at Towse Court on Tuesday 28 November. It was an opportunity to talk to them about the services offered by the Practice and answer any questions. We were also offered a nice cup of coffee/tea and some lovely cakes!
The Practice would like to thank the PPG members for all their hard work and commitment to us over the past year and wish them all a very happy and healthy Christmas and a great New Year.
Julia Beasley
Practice Manager
APPENDIX 2
Report from OCCG and SELF Meetings
This report covers key issues and is not a set of minutes
OCCG/LFC Meeting 17 Oct 17
- Letter of Intent. Work is in progress to finalise the OCCG/LFC letter of intent. A new draft will be prepared on conclusion of the contract discussions between OCCG and HWO, the latter having taken responsibility for the support of the Locality Forums.
- Primary Care update. A paper summarising the substantial number of Social Prescribing projects that are under way in Oxford. It was noted that there was a considerable investment in these projects. The LFCs asked for clarification on the status of the projects and whether they are delivering the intended outcomes.
- Primary Care and Patient Representation. It was confirmed that the Primary Care Patient Advisory Group has been disbanded. Chris Wardley (North Oxfordshire) is the patient rep on the Oxfordshire Primary Care Commissioning Committee (OPCCC). LFCs noted that this was a large task for one person and have subsequently agreed at their meeting on 28 Nov that OCCG would be asked to accept a second patient rep to sit on the OPCCC. This will be discussed at the next OCCG/LFC meeting on 21 Dec 17.
- Online Consultations. OCCG have initiated a project to look at online consultations. This is a national scheme which has already been rolled out in some areas. JH is a member of the OCCG working group looking at this subject. The group has yet to meet.
- Patient Data Sharing with the RBH. JH has again raised this issue and it appears now to be getting some traction. The need for effective communications across the county boundary is now writ large in the Locality Primary Care plan.
- Communications in respect of the Healthshare MSK provision. The OCCG comms team have accepted that the communications about the new MSK service were not well handled and that patients had been confused by the changes. It was also accepted that the new provider had not been aware of the backlog of 12,000 appointments before they took over the service. This was not OCCG’s finest moment!
SELF Meeting – 23 Nov 17
- Altogether Better. SELF members were disappointed to hear that there will be no implementations of Altogether Better in the South East. Other ways of achieving more joined up health and wellbeing capability for patients were discussed. Sonning Common has a number of proposals and offerings which work well for them.
- RACU. It was reported that the RACU services were proving very popular with patients who were receiving good treatment and thus avoiding hospital admission. It seems that currently RACU has the capacity to provide more extensive treatment than originally envisaged. There was slight concern that having raised patient expectation, as the uptake of the service increases, some expectations might not be met in future. This is under closer review.
- Locality Primary Care Plan. There was general concern that the expectation of co-production of the plan had not been met (this same concern has been expressed by all LFCs). For some time the comments on the various draft plans that had been submitted to the authors had not been incorporated. It has been noticeable that more notice of our comments was taken as the public meeting on 28 Nov in Wallingford drew nearer. The final version of the plan will be published on the OCCG website shortly.
- Status of PPGs. Some concern has been shown over the lack of understanding about the constitution for PPGs and thus their room for manoeuvre in managing, for example, committee members. There was also a variation in the support and attendance at meetings provided by practices. Each PPG has been asked to forward their terms of reference, charter or other local governance document, to see if lessons of best practice could be learned.
JH