Minutes of Patient Reference Group (PRG)

Date: Wednesday 28th March 2012 Time: 6.20-8.15pm

Present: Martin Davidson, Vic Hollingworth, Peggy Long, John Malcolm, Heather Tucker, June Warden (also on Bridgwater Bay Health Federation PRG), Sue Drew (Edington Business Manager).

Apologies: Peter Farmer – rang Thurs am. There were 2 other people who had volunteered for the committee but didn’t come to the meeting. As I don’t have their permission to circulate their email addresses I will send this separately to them to see if they still want to be involved or not.

  1. Terms of the group:

There was a good general discussion about what the group was there to do and how it would do it. No firm decisions were made but the discussions revealed that the group and the practice would be happy for the following:

  • This is a voluntary group – the practice has said that they would like a group but are under no obligation to do so.
  • This is an advisory body - the GP partners make the decisions about running the business but would appreciate input from patients on a number of criteria and feel that the patient population as a whole would appreciate better links and communication with the practice.
  • The group to be reactive e.g. if the practice needed feedback on changing services , promoting surgery news, looking at challenges eg Care Quality Commission etc.
  • The group could also be proactive e.g. suggestions to set up an ‘expert patient’ group to be available to talk to newly diagnosed patients for some conditions; or to determine what issues patients might have and do a satisfaction survey on these topics.
  • The group would probably meet about every 6 weeks but if projects required it then those involved might meet more often.
  • Sue Drew offered to be Secretary for the Group and the practice could provide simple printing and copying to the group.
  • Everybody present would consider the group and whether they still wanted to be part of it. It was agreed that a Chairperson was needed and maybe a few more people in the core group. We would work to expand the virtual group to be more representative of the patient population.
  • Example terms were set out and will be looked at in more depth before terms are agreed at the next meeting.
  1. Patient survey report

The practice set up a new website last October which can support patient communication in a number of ways. If we choose to run a PRG then we do have to meet certain criteria of running a satisfaction survey and reporting the results. PRG/practice actions can then be taken from these. Sue Drew had conducted a small general survey (30 sent out 20 responders) as a baseline and had summarised the results into a preliminary report for discussion. The full report will be published in the website. NB: I have added some queries that Peter Farmer had when he telephoned me Thurs am as they seemed useful additions giving opportunities for patient information.

  1. Short report on past, present and future projects at the practice.

Sue had provided a short report on recent surgery projects, many of which had originated with the previous PRG to give an idea of what the previous PRG facilitated within the practice.

Notes: One member had worked in a GP practice and one had been a member of the previous PRG – apart from that all felt that there was a lot to learn about how the practice runs. There is but it will become more familiar over time and the practice will endeavour to provide information in easy chunks if that is possible! Martin Davidson emailed the following day to offer his services as Chair unless anyone else wished to take this position.