Minutes of Patient Participation Meeting held at6 p.m.
in the Meeting Room at The Cottons Medical Practice
Present:
Helen Boto (HB) Chairperson, John Fryatt (JF) Vice Chairperson, Janet Harper (JH) Secretary, Michael Pratt (MP) Treasurer, Julian Crowe (JC) Practice Manager, Michelle Garrett (MG) Office Manager, Chris Sidebottom (CS), Gwendoline Cooper (GC), Richard Denham (RD), Eileen Plowe (EP), Roger Martin (RM), Dennis McKetty (DM), Ruth Stokes (RS)
- Apologies for Absence:
Veronica Howes, Mary-Anne Burch, Elizabeth Mitchell, Lyn Mura,
Pat Harrison, Lynn O’Shea
HB apologised for the fact that the meeting scheduled for the previous week had been cancelled, but this decision had been taken as the weather forecast had been for heavy snow, which in effect had not happened.
- Minutes of Last Meeting:
The Minutes of the last meeting held on 10th November, 2016, were accepted.
- Practice Manager’s Report:
JC thanked the PPG for their cheque for £850, which had been used to buy a Paediatric SATS Monitor. This piece of equipment would be used to measure children’s oxygen saturation levels.
In the last quarter there had been one administrative complaint and six clinical complaints. Over the past year there had been 22 complaints and although this number was regrettable, it had to be remembered that onelocal Practice was used to attracting this number of complaints in a day.
The Family and Friends Test showed 87% recommended, 4% did not know and 9% did not recommend the Practice.
Over the last month there had been 92 DNAs (Did not Attend). It had been decided that when a patient had made an acute appointment on the day, but had then not materialised and had not bothered to cancel, that another appointment would not be made for them the same day.
Dr. Shah, who joined the Practice at the end of last year attended the meeting for a short time to introduce herself. HB thanked her for coming and welcomed her on behalf of the PPG.
JC reported that a full-time Nurse Practitioner, Karen Love, had joined the team, together with a new Receptionist. Previously the Nurse Practitioner had been part-time and as a result of recruiting a full-time replacement another 125 new appointments per week had been created. Every two weeks Karen would also undertake extended hours appointments alongside the on duty GP. Acute appointments requested on the day would always be seen by a Nurse Practitioner, who would refer to a GP where necessary.
A new Health Care Assistant had also joined and because she undertook a number of tasks previously carried out by Nurses, 40 extra HCAappointments were available each week and this freed up extra nurse appointments.
Four new 24 hour blood pressure monitoring machines had been purchased which would be used by the Health Care Assistant.
Regarding the Government proposal to introduce 7 day opening for GP Practices from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m., it may well be that this could be achieved through a Federation Primary Care Home, possibly somewhere like Nene Park, where GPs from different Practices in the area could attend in order to provide 7 day care. Comments were made that if this were the case a more comprehensive bus service to Nene Park would be required.
JC felt that it would be helpful if the PPG could undertake to talk to a cross section of patients in order to ascertain whether 7 day opening was an important priority for patients. The Cottons already opened from 8 a.m. until 6.30 p.m., Monday to Friday, with a late night on Thursdays until 7.30 p.m. each week. There were also late night telephone GP consultations conducted during the week. CS commented that it had to be born in mind that although the majority of patients appeared to be of the older age group, there were a significant number of people who were of working age and who were not paid for time taken off to attend appointments. This could well mean that therewas a need for some weekend availability. HB said that whilst the PPG would be quite willing to approach patients for their views, PPG volunteers needed to come forward to carry out this task.
As from February, 2017, electronic prescribing would be activated.
The patient list closed last year at 9,334 and since reopening in September 403 patients had joined. At the present time, however, the list stood at 9,245 as it had to be remembered that reductions in the list size were caused by movement of population and death.
JC gave an update on the building extension, reporting that the landlord was prepared to take a loan and fund it himself, providing that NHS England paid interest on the loan and appropriate notional rent. It was very disappointing that the request for funding the extension had been turned down by NHS England and perhaps it was significant that Nene CCG had not had a single application approved. At the present time any advancement regarding this situation was in the hands of the landlord.
The Flu Vaccination programme had been quite successful this year, 1,751 patients having been vaccinated.
Although a bariatric couch had been purchased, problems were being experienced owing to the size of the couch in a small room.
Three new dermatoscopes, which were used to examine lumps on the skin, had been purchased with a grant from Kettering and DistrictCharitable Medical Trust .
The PCSE organisation had taken over all NHS administration. This had resulted in general chaos and problems with medical records, payments etc.
The new Practice Booklet had been produced, sponsored by Roxhill Developments.
JC requested that the PPG drew attention to the fact that a wide selection of magazines, which were reasonably current, were for sale for 50p a copy in Reception (all money received being donated to charity). It was suggested that perhaps local Residential Homes might be interested in taking some of these magazines and HB agreed to make enquiries.
In conclusion, JC felt that looking back to a year ago, the situation regarding staff and availability of appointments was encouraging and greatly improved.
- Chairperson’s Report:
HB reported that JF had produced an informative Christmas Newsletter and a Winter issue was due to be produced imminently. She asked members to inform the PPG of any items they felt should be included in this issue.
The new Practice Booklet had been produced and as had been mentioned at the last meeting, it had been sponsored by Roxhill Developments. A member of the PPG had expressed concerns regarding the fact that Roxhill were the company developing Warth Park, but the meeting felt that the arrangement had been made independently between the Practice and Roxhill and as it had not involved the PPG, to comment was not really appropriate.
HB reported on the Patient Survey undertaken at the Flu Clinics, to which there had been 260 responses. The Survey had been completed by 110 male patients and 150 female, and in the main these patients were over the age of 60 years. A summary of the Survey is attached to these Minutes. One really concerning point was that although the majority of patients were aware of the Practice Website and referred to it, they still did not use the on line appointment booking facility.
HB felt that as a result of fundraising efforts it had been satisfying to at last hand over an amount of £850 to the Practice. It had eventually been decided to purchase a Paediatric Stats Monitor which it was hoped would be a valuable addition to Surgery equipment. The present situation was now that there was £122.02 left in the PPG account. Thought now needed to be given as to what could be done to raise funds during 2017 and any ideas would be very welcome. We were, of course, planning to have a stall again at the Raunds Carnival, which this year was due to be held in July. HB requested that Julian should approach the doctors and nurses in order to ascertain another piece of equipment they would find useful.
- Funding Refusal for Surgery Extension:
JC stated that the refusal of NHS England to grant funding for the Surgery extension had been a considerable blow. Heasked if the PPG would consider instigating a petition requesting that further consideration be given to this decision, particularly in view of the housing expansion in the area and the subsequent increase in the number of patients who would be joining the Practice. It was agreed that thought would be given to this, but it was felt that Government would not really be interested in a local issue. It might, however, be of use to send such a petition to our MP, Mr. Tom Pursglove, in the hope that he could bring some pressure to bear.
- Any Other Business:
JF reported that as Vice Chairperson he had attended some Steering Group LPEG meetings (Locality Patient Engagement Group) and a couple of main ENLPEG meetings at the Saxon Hall in Raunds. He added that anybody was welcome to come to the Saxon Hall meetings and the dates for the year were as follows:
February 09 2017
May 11 2017
August 10 2017
November 09 2017
DM asked if the PPG had considered approaching Waitrose with a request that we could be included in the Green Token programme.
HB replied that we had approached Waitrose in connection with fundraising and they had given a £10 voucher to the Flu Clinic Raffle, but they had made the point that they were inundated with requests for donations and to be included in this programme.
- Date of Next Meeting:
The next PPG meeting was set for 6 p.m. on Thursday, 23rd March, 2017 and the AGM would be 6 p.m. on 27th April, 2017, both to be held at The Cottons Medical Practice.
Recording of this meeting was done for accuracy purposes only.