Minutes of the Patient Forum Group Meeting

12 April 2016

The meeting commenced at 12.45pm

Present:Bill WaltersPatient Representative

Gary DickinsonPatient Representative

John SalterPatient Representative

Adrian JonesPatient Representative

Ken LeightonPatient Representative

Stewart PigottPractice Manager

Dr J SowerySenior Partner

Apologies:Jude Garner, Fiona Piercy, Peter Bullock

The minutes of the meeting of 9 February 2016 were read and ratified by those present.

Items from previous minutes:

  • The tensioner on the entrance door to the practice has been disabled. Stewart Pigott stated the Practice had been in contact with an odd job man who although agreeing to come out to replace the tensioner had not as yet been to complete the job. Bill Walters stated his son was a competent odd-job man who would probably be happy to complete the work for the Practice and would email Stewart Pigott with the contact details.
  • It was noted by the group that the standards of service in the pharmacy adjoining the practice were beginning to fall. It was noted that a lot of staff changes had occurred in the previous weeks after the sale to a new owner. To be discussed at the next meeting to see if any improvement was noted.
  1. Dr Sowery stated that unfortunately Dr Laura Wilson would be leaving the Practice at the end of May. The Partners were actively seeking two salaried GPs to increase clinical sessions from 20 to 24 on recruitment. The Practice is looking to bring in locums for the June/July period to infill the stopgap between recruitment and the new doctors commencing their positions. The practice list size is rising again after the three month closure that was agreed with the CCG came to an end.
  2. The new practice nurse, Natalie Darlington will commence her position at the practice on 6 June 2016 and the new administration assistant Emma Birks would commence her position towards the end of May. John Salter asked if the Practice could send out text messages to patients on the changes to all the patients we held mobile numbers for via the patient text messaging service, updates to the onscreen message on the patient call screens and website. It was agreed the Practice would look into this.
  3. Last year’s influenza vaccination was not as successful at preventing flu in the general population. Dr Sowery agreed and stated that the flu vaccination is a trivalent covering the top 3 strains that the Health Department believes will be most prevalent over the 2015/2016 winter season and that this year’s top strains possibly did not match the strains out in the wild.
  4. Could a “Join the Forum” button be placed on the home page of the practice website. Stewart Pigott to investigate.

The meeting closed at 1.35pm