Local Patient Participation Report – The Mathews Practice.
Setting up the group – introduction.
The practice initiated the setting-up the Patient Participation Group (PPG) in late 2010, when the Patient Advice and Liaison team facilitated a training session on 9 November 2010, for the surgery and patients. Unfortunately, whilst the session was very informative, not enough patients actually attended to formally set-up a PPG.
The practice then had a meeting with the Local Involvement Network (LiNK)in July 2011 to help the practice to determine how to best recruit patients to the PPG.
The practice advertised the PPG to patients via the website, posters and pamphlets and invited all patients to respond. Receptionists and Clinicians also verbally invited patients.
a.Profile:
After some movement in the group’s make-up through the initial meetings (many patients that expressed their interest did not attend meetings or wish to be involved when later contacted), the group now has a core of 20 patients that attend meetings. Patients that wish to be involved but not attend meetings (consultation found this a common issue) can follow the information via the website and complete on-line comments back to the group via the website. The profile of the patient group is as follows:
Age range % in core group of PPG
20 – 3010%
30-4015%
40-5010%
50-6020%
60-7020%
70-8020%
80-905%
The gender make-up is 25% male and 75% female.
There is a fair split of patients from each site, 30% being from White Lane and 70% from Belgrave.
b.Patient Groups not included
Whilst the group does represent the age range of the practice population quite effectively, the male / female mix is not fully proportionate; work is ongoing to recruit more male members.
Likewise, the group does not fully represent the ethnic mixture of the practice population and work is ongoing by the PPG to recruit additional members from these local communities. It is to be noted that the PPG has arranged to attend a local open day at the local mosque to talk about this issue, have spoken with our Chinese interpreter (see minutes of 29th February) to gain in-roads to this community and the practice has recently recruited a Somalian gentleman to join the group.
The PPG does not currently include patients in the 0-20 age range. Whist it is felt appropriate for over 18s to join (and effort has been made to recruit this group). It is not felt appropriate at this stage to involve those under 18.
c.Determining Priority Issues
The practice surveyed patients to ask what their key priorities were and also studied the internal survey completed in 2010-11 where various questions were asked of patients including free-text comments box where patients responded with consistent themes. Talking to members of the PPG (not in its current format), the practice determined to set the following areas as priorities in the patient survey:
i. Appointment access:
Ease of use of the appointment system
Waiting times for appointments
Choice of GP
ii.Staff attitudes, friendliness and helpfulness as well as patient perceived ability for clinicians.
iii.Patient Information
iv.Associated chemist performances (managed prescriptions)
d.Obtaining Views
The survey was then published on-line and in hard copy in the surgery (interestingly, despite 200,000 hits a year on our web-site, only two patients chose to complete the on-line questionnaire – research has been started into what we can do to improve this).
Using the information from the mainly hard-copy surveys we then analyzed the detail and passed this information to the PPG. They initially saw this on 29th February but chose to look at it in more detail with a sub-set of the group on 14th March.
e.PRG Discussion
The sub-group discussed the report on 14th March and decided that it would be useful for them to set a new patient questionnaire in order to gain more detail. The practice agreed to purchase them membership of the National Association of Patient Participation Groups in order to research their questionnaires further.
f.Action Plan
The action plan is two-fold. Initially, the PPG wants to re-survey the patients using additional questions to drill down to more specific information. This strategy is well-supported by the practice.
The second part of the plan is however, in view of the surgery’s requirement to produce an action plan from the survey that was completed, for the practice to concurrently look at the following whilst the group re-survey:
- Trialling a new duty doctor role to increase access and decrease clinician stress. This is as a result of the access and friendliness questions in the survey. To be trialled in Summer 2012.
- Trial extending triage to afternoon session. Again, this is in response to the access questions in the survey. To be trialled in Autumn 2012.
c.Research and trial apro-active recall system for chronic disease management thereby managing to book appointments with a more regular clinician. This is as a response to the continuity of GP question in the survey. To be trialled in Winter 2012.
Once the re-survey from the PPG has occurred, we will have a further discussion and come up with additional actions as required
g.Summary of evidence
As shown in point (c), the areas of priority were surveyed (click here for results). The areas of key concern were then looked at in more depth and the following evidence provided the background to the action plan above.
(i) In the survey, when asked if you were satisfied with the waiting time between making an appointment and seeing your GP, 14% of you answered that you were dissatisfied.
When looking at the access to the surgery, the previous introduction of a triage system helped to reduce the number of DNAs and complaints regarding access quite significantly. As a result of this trial (and then full implementation) it is thought to be worth trialling it in the afternoon in addition to the morning.
(ii)Furthering the access question above and coupled with another question where 1.5% of you feeling the GP’s friendliness was poor, we looked into the stress levels of GPs and their ability to see more patients, removing other non-patient-centred work.
The surgery has completed research into local solutions to the stress of paperwork, blood results, queries, managed prescriptions etc. and has found that whilst there are several models around the city, taking a GP out of surgery to complete these tasks freeing the other GPs to solely see patients has had a positive effect. Again, this is only subjective evidence; therefore we will need to trial the system. It should improve access.
(iii)When asked if you were satisfied with your choice of Doctor at each appointment, 19% of you answered that you were not satisfied.
We have a new capability to complete searches on recall dates easily,after moving to ‘Systm One’, our new clinical IT system. Accordingly, we feel that what held us back in the past regards pro-active recall has improved drastically and the long-held belief that the correct recall of chronic disease can make a difference to the continuity of GP is one that we intend to trial.
The supporting evidence for the survey and discussions with the PPG can be found at where minutes of meetings along with the survey summary can be found under the Patient Participation Group tab on the Right-hand-side of the home screen.
h.Actions to be taken by the practice as a result of
- The survey:
Trial Duty Doctor System
Trial moving triage into afternoon as well as morning
Trial pro-active chronic disease management recall
- Priorities from Local Patient Participation Report
Re-survey patients
Ensure fair representation on PPG
i.Opening Hours and access
The opening Hours for the Surgery and access information are present on the practice website at They are as follows:
Opening Times
Reception is open throughout the day from 8.00am to 6.00pm Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
On Thursdays we are open between 8.00am and midday.
Please note that whilst reception is open 8am - 6pm,the phone lines are not open between 12pm and 3.30pm. If you ring the appointment line between these hours then you will be redirected to the out of hours GP. This is done to ensure that patients suffering with emergency problems will be able to speak to a GP immediately (our GPs conduct home visits during these hours.)
Appointment Times
We offer GP appointments between 8.30am and 11am in the mornings and between 3.30pm and 6pm in the afternoons.
In addition to the general appointments, we offer a variety of other times to see our nurses and specialist services along with extended hours.
We offer one evening session and one Saturday morning session per fortnight at each site, please ask at reception for further information.
Out of Hours
The practice works very closely with the Sheffield GP Collaborative who provide cover to our surgery outside normal working hours. If you have an urgent problem when we are shut, ring our appointment line and you will be transferred directly to this service. This includes weekends.
NHS Direct
For general advice, please be aware of NHS Direct’s telephone number: 0845 4647 and their website:
Walk-In Centre
There is also a walk-in service on Broad Lane.
Please do not ask to see a doctor out of hours unless you genuinely cannot wait until the surgery re-opens.
Call 999 in an emergency. Chest pains and / or shortness of breath constitute an emergency.
j.Extended Hours
Information about the extended Hours opening hours for patients can also be found on the practice website at
The information found on the website as detailed below:
“In addition to the general appointments, we offer a variety of other times to see our nurses and specialist services along with extended hours, where you can see a GP at a time convenient to those working.
We offer one evening session and one Saturday morning session per fortnight at each site, please ask at reception for further information. ”