Meeting Report – 30th March 2017
MATTERS ARISING FROM PREVIOUS MINUTES – We are going to check what hospital equipment can be returned to SASH and put this in the newsletter.
PATIENT REPRESENTATIVE GROUP – Three topics, see below, were covered at a recent meeting plus the East Surrey Sustainability and Transformation Plan which appears to have come to a standstill. The CCG is working hard to get all the community teams to work together as it used to. We are advanced in East Surrey working closely with mental health and social care but finances are difficult. Volunteers have been requested to look into care after discharge.
Dementia Friends – It was noted that OHC is a dementia friendly practice. The Love Oxted Team are working towards Oxted becoming a dementia friendly town and will endeavour to change people's perceptions about dementia.
Choosing Wisely Campaign -This Campaign is aimed at improving conversations between patients and their doctors and nurses, by having discussions that are informed by the doctor taking into account what is important to the patient in order to make better decisions about the patient’s care. The Campaign hopes to encourage people to challenge and question their GP more to help avoid tests, treatments or procedures that are unlikely to be of clinical benefit. ‘Over-treatment’ can sometimes cause more issues by exposing people to unnecessary risks and it wastes NHS money and resources. The CCG is seeking help from GPs to go forward with this campaign and flagged up the cost of medication.
National Diabetes Programme - The Healthier You Programme is a 10 month programme offered to patients by GPs to encourage lifestyle and behavioural changes. For the first month, sessions are held on a weekly basis and after that they are held once a month. 1800 referrals have been received into the Programme across the South East with a large numberof people continuing on the course. 6 out of the 18 Practices in East Surrey are currently referring into the Programme and the hope is to roll this out to the rest of the practices so they are all utilising this service. In East Surrey over 80% of participants completed the first month of regular core sessions and 66% have continued on with the programme. After 6 months there will be clinical evidence available on how effective the course is, which will be shared with NHS England. OHC run 2 clinics on a Monday and have put 30 patients through the programme. As there are patients on the waiting list, a Friday clinic will open. OHC have processes in place to check potential diabetic patients. This programme has proven successful and that it can help reduce the risk.
PRACTICE UPDATE – OCS cleaning services is being trialled daily from 1-6pm which will include cleaning the porch area and getting rid of the cobwebs. Kevin the street cleaner still cleans the ramp periodically. Virgin Care have lost a lot of primary care provision and the Oxted family planning clinic is closing. Clinicians and staff at the Oxted Therapies Unit were told they are moving to Redhill, therefore there will be no walk-in clinic service in Oxted. Virgin Care also lost the contract for children's services which may have an impact on OHC. The Wellbeing Advisor Service funded by the council, is doing very well and there is a great demand for it. It is social prescribing and patients get an hour’s appointment. The service is open all day on Tuesdays and as from the end of April it will also be available all day on Thursdays. OHC provide 24 hour blood pressure and 24 hour ECG services. Due to the expense of the equipment OHC propose to loan out the monitors to patients via a loan agreement and a £20 deposit. We discussed this, voted and agreed to go forward with the loan agreement and deposit. Numbers are low for smears and we were asked if we could help with a survey and data collection on this service. We are going to do the same for childhood immunisation data. The Chair of the local NCT informed OHC that she would help with child immunisation.
TALKS UPDATE – Posters for the next talk on 'The Eyes' have been distributed and we asked if the poster can go on the screen in the waiting room. We are going to ask Dr Gary McKenzie at SASH to talk about 'Tummy Troubles' at our talk in July and possibly have the following talk on Dementia. We discussed various sponsorship possibilities for our talks.
NEWSLETTER UPDATE – PranitaTamang who currently does the newsletter will be resigning soon to go to University. We haven't heard back from Oxted School about a replacement, we will enquire again when students start sixth form.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS – We are going to do another 'meet and greet the PPG' session in the waiting room. David Borer asked if SCC had contacted the First Responders and OHC about the streetlights being turned off at midnight and if it caused difficulties in locating patient homes. They had not been advised but in fact street lighting and illumination is not always helpful and that torches were best to see house names / house numbers. Julie Ludbrook advised that on a recent visit to the surgery there was no 'ping' tone which meant one patient missed her appoitment. Once OHC were aware the problem was fixed. Ronnie Godfrey explained how the online appointment system worked for 'Book on the Day' to see a Doctor but this does not apply for nurse appointments. A new boundary map has been purchased which will be framed and put up in the corridor.
The next meeting is Thursday 25th May 2017 at 7:00pm.