Minutes of Patient Group Meeting held on Monday 26th June @ Wrose Health Centre.
Present :Dr Gavin, Rachel Thompson, Donna Ford, Helen Pitts, James Howgego, Sue Hodgson , Pauline Bland , Gill Walkers
Patients: Mr GS, Mrs LM, Mrs AW, Mrs DL, Mrs MM, Mrs UD, Mr ED, Mrs AS, Mrs BC
Minutes of Previous Meeting: The minutes of the previous meeting were reviewed. We had discussed Physio 1st, this is now up and running and patient feedback has been good. Discussed DNA’s – Mrs Clarke had been kind enough to look at our current DNA letters. She has tweaked them making them clearer, less threatening and less wordy. We have been using these for the last few weeks. The group said they would quite like a little presentation next time on DNA’s and how we faired against other practices. On-line ordering was also discussed – Mr Doogan mention review dates getting out of sync, but it seems that this is usually if you have creams/ inhalers etc that don’t really fall into a regular pattern. The closure of the Virtual ward was mentioned last time – we haven’t heard anything else on this.
HALE – James Howgego: James came to talk to the group about his work with HALE as a social prescriber. This is a pilot funded by Bradford Districts Clinical Commissioning group for 12 months. Social prescribing is a service that GPs can use to refer patients who seek a lot of medical appointments for social reasons ( primarily finance trouble, relationship breakdown, stress at work, weight issues or help with loneliness). The practice can refer up to 50 patients in the year to his service and have sent approximately 10 people so far. James can help them with engaging in activities locally. He is based in Shipley and cover three practices( Idle, Saltaire and Rockwell Wrose). He can offer patients up to 6 sessions and so far he has had some good results. He gave an example where a lady had become extremely anxious about returning to a local supermarket due to an incident that had occurred but with his help she built up her confidence to return.
AGE UK – Gill:Gill came to talk to the group about a pilot she is running at Saltaire practice and a general overview of AGE UK. Her pilot at Saltaire looks at patients with mild frailty – the idea is offer support, help with confidence issues, general health promotion. It is a face to face service and patients are selected by the practice. There are no plans at present to roll out to other practices. Gill then went on to talk about the new AGE UK shop on Wrose Road. Gill encouraged everyone to use this new service which is not only a charily shop, but an Independent Living Centre, offering free information and advice, fundraising, has elements of lifestyle and learning as well as all the normal features of a charity shop. Dr Gavin said that AGE UK are an excellent “brand” and she often recommends patient towards AGE UK as they are proven to provide a good range of services to older people ( over 50).
Suggestion Box: Mrs BC has taken on the role of emptying the box and RT invited her to read out the comments received for the group to discuss
1/ Request for nibbles and a piano to be played while they waited to see the doctor. – Tongue in cheek ? not discussed
2/ Poor parking @ Rockwell - This is a recurrent complaint discussed many times. The car park is extremely restricted but there is nil land available to create more spaces. The services running from Rockwell are all in similar position and further parking is needed
3/Compliment for Wrose reception staff. RT will pass this on to the staff.
4/ Complaint re a Rockwell Staff member – this was lengthy and specific – RT will be dealing with this however the complainant failed to leave a name
5/Rockwell Waiting Room is too hot - This is a recurrent complaint and another problem without easy solution. Rockwell waiting room has a lot of glass so is very hot in summer and cold in winter. The practice provides cold water when it is very hot. Air conditioning is not possible as the external housing unit would need to be placed at the front of the premises in easy reach for tampering and is high risk for children playing .
6/ Rockwell waiting room seating – complaint that they are very uncomfortable. RT will take this to the partners to see if new seating can be purchased as staff also complained that many are now showing “wear and tear “ and cracking up ( probably due to the heat)
The group then discussed the format of the comments slips and suggested they be adaptedto have a contact number on it as well as a message on the wall by the boxes in both surgeries. We could also put something on the roll round screen and in the newsletter.
Access Plan:This is what we have to complete for Bradford CCG. Rachel and Mrs Moss attended an event put on by the CCG to discuss this and to share good ideas with other practices. Many ideas came to the table as all surgeries work in slightly different ways. Some had Triage like us; others had a “walk in” surgery in a morning for urgent cases, then less urgent patients in an afternoon. Our idea was a Top Tips leaflet on how to get the best from an appointment, this to perhaps be added to the NP pack.
- Other ideas – Technology – online/sms/emails – offering tutorials to patients in the use of these services.
- Staff – have expressed an interest in attending a course on Clip Art/ publisher – to help with the newsletter design and displays.
- DNA Letters to be revised
- Wellbeing Worker
Sue & Pauline: Came to talk to the group again to see if we could come up with some ideas for patient engagement/experience. The following ideas were discussed.
- A basic Life support session/ defibrillator / choking
- Basic First Aid
- Self-Care Workshop
- Coughs & Cold Workshop
- Pharmacy 1st type event
- BP/Pulses linked to flu clinics
Need to come up with a proper plan by the next meeting – Rachel will liaise with other PPG members and with Sue & Pauline to look in to funding, venues, and how would see the events running.
Bradford Care Alliance:This is the body used by Bradford CCG’s to make sure that all funds etc are distributed fairly and equally. The Care Alliance is the body that is taking overall responsibility for rolling out the extended access across Bradford( this is the term to described GPs opening 8 – 8 ). At the moment Wave 1 is the inner city and it is up and running. We aren’t sure if we will be in wave 2 or 3. But when it does happen it will probably be based at a hub ( another surgery rather than our own) – but we will be able to book into it. We will give you more information as we get it.
TPC – Federation – This is our federation – it has been quiet for a while but we are now working on a project to employ pharmacists who work remotely to help us with prescription queries, repeat prescriptions, medical discharges as these are all things that take up GP time ( Dr Gavin said she can spend over one hour per day doing prescription administration) , pharmacists are trained and far better qualified to deal with these sorts of things.
Next Meeting: Monday 2nd October @ Rockwell