MINUTES

Northgate Village Surgery Patient Reference Group Meeting

2nd June 2014

Attendees

Ken Sylvester (chair), Margaret Nixon (deputy chair), Ken Holding, Gail Ashton, June Moore, Sue Butcher, Brenda Southward

NVS Staff – Dr I Minshall, Lee Jones, Grace Marshall (secretary)

Apologies

Angela Gatt, Lynn Hughes, Eileen Cutler

Dr I Minshall and Lee Jones arrived late to the meeting.

Northgate Development (The Fountains) Update – Dr I Minshall

We should receive the keys to the new building 19thDecember 2014 and move in January 2015. Planning is now down to fine details (i.e. scatter cushions!) and there are no new major developments. Artwork for the windows has been discussed, there should be a white willow tree up the side of the building. White willow is where aspirin comes from. There is the possibility of William Morris print stained glass effect windows.

Staff went to visit a mock-up clinical room, which looks good however some major adjustments were required. The floors will be washable and not carpeted, the desks will be curved, and each room will have a feature wall in the surgery colour which is purple-ish for foxglove. There will be a similar coloured cover for the chairs in the surgery. There will be a meeting at the surgery on 18th June with the artist for the building, Nayan Kulkarni.

A floor plan was shown for the building. We will be on one side of the floor and Northgate Medical Centre will be on the other side. The administration area and reception desk will be shared. Public patient toilets are situated on the Northgate Medical Centre side. This is where the disabled toilets for the floor will be. On the NVS side there are only staff toilets for male and female, however there is possibility that one of these could be made available for our patients to use.

There will be 8 doctor rooms and 3 nurse rooms. There will be a specific gynaecology couch for coils, exams etc. There will be a special phlebotomy chair for blood taking, and collection time will be later in the afternoon instead of 1pm. Rooms will be better soundproofed and there will be no patients sat directly outside consulting rooms, as the waiting area will be separate. Treatment rooms will all be larger, with minimum 9 square metre floor space.

NMC will have the meeting room for the floor, however NVS will have a very large teaching room and a practice manager’s room available for use. There will also be a small interview room for interviews or private, non-clinical conversations between staff and patients. The reception area will be in full view of the waiting room and shared with NMC staff, with a section for wheelchair access. Hopefully the openness of the reception area will reduce the amount of abuse reception staff will get if patients can be seen and heard by everybody in the waiting room.

The ground floor of The Fountains will be dental and sexual health, first floor will be Northgate Village Surgery and Northgate Medical Centre, and second floor will be Dr Bland and The Elms. NMC’s colour will be blue.

Members should be able to tour the new building after Health and Safety have given the go-ahead.

Approval of Previous Minutes

The minutes from the previous meeting (3/3/14) were approved.

Unfinished Business

  1. Newsletter – Grace presented a non-colour copy of the new summer newsletter for members to look at and provide feedback. Members thought it was good, and is getting bigger as is now 4 pages long. Members commented that DNA rates are improving. Some members were aware of the phlebotomy service and always use the hospital as previously have had a bad experience at the surgery. There was a feature on St Martin’s clinic, which is currently still open.
  2. Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire – Grace showed the group the proposed questionnaire for 2014/15 and asked for suggestions. The group was in two halves about asking patients which clinician they usually see, as it was more personal however does provide a direct link for feedback for specific clinicians. Questions 12 to 19 are to be summarized in one question to make the questionnaire shorter and therefore more patients likely to participate. The phlebotomy service in the newsletter was discussed, and it was suggested that this could be added to the questionnaire to see how many patients use the service. Another suggested question is to find out how many patients use the online service. It was agreed that the questionnaire should have only 10 questions to make sure it is not too long.
    The questionnaire could be handed out with pens and clipboards from reception, or kept next to the sign-in screen with the return box next to it for ease. A fun message could be added onto the screen to encourage patients to participate. It was suggested that clinicians could hand out the feedback forms; however this is up to the clinicians themselves to agree to.
  3. Incorrect patient contact details – Grace explained that a small form has been placed in waiting room for patients to fill out and return. There has been a good take up of this. Members suggested a note being added to the reception board to ask patients to check we have current information. It was suggested that this slip could be attached to the patient questionnaire and then patients could hand in separately to maintain anonymity.
  4. Missed appointments (DNAs) – The DNA letter system is in place. The doctor will decide if and when the secretaries should send out a letter to the patient regarding missing appointments.
  5. Appointment reminders by text – Members agree this is generally working well, however several members have been receiving two text reminders simultaneously. This is a problem with Emis and will be put for the attention of the IT manager to be raised with Emis.
  6. Telephone system – The 08443 878396 number has now changed to 01244 564319. There have been several problems with implementing this change, however these should have now been sorted. The 08443 number should be defunct; however the old appointments line number should still work. There will be 4 incoming lines in a queue, so the 5th caller will not be able to get through, so this is fewer lines than the old number, although it is now a landline number not 0844.
  7. Toilets facilities in the new building – Taking samples was discussed. It can be difficult and undignified to collect samples at the surgery, and at some hospitals toilets have special shelves to put pots on to make this easier. The possibility of using paper or plastic cups was suggested. Dr Minshall advised that there would not be special sample toilets in the new building.
  8. Care.Data update – Care.Data has not yet been rolled out in our area. There is no set date yet, currently only trial areas are being used. The surgery does not agree with it; however it is up to the patient to opt out. Ken S commented that if they knew how anyone could get any information on a person as so much is done and stored on the internet. The surgery is still collecting opt out forms from patients, which can be found online and in the surgery.
  9. NHS 111 – The surgery is still promoting Out Of Hours per patient feedback.
  10. Appointment availability – Telephone triage received a lot of good feedback from group, agreed that if you want to see any doctor then it is very good, however it is open to abuse. Wait times are monitored weekly at Thursday meetings with clinicians. They can be affected by human influences and even the weather. The longest wait times are currently for Dr Davies and Dr Minshall, however Dr Crasta also has a longer wait time as he is split between two practices. Lee will bring a graph on appointment availability to the next meeting.
  11. CQC Inspection – Per feedback from the CQC inspection, all clinical staff have now been CRB checked, thereby making the surgery CQC compliant.
  12. Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund –Only three CCGs in the country got the £50m from the Prime Minister’s Fund, unfortunately our CCG did not.

New Business

  1. Chair person –There was a query from one of the members as to who the chair is. The current chair person is Ken S. The deputy chair is Margaret N. Ken S was nominated as chair in December 2013 and will be chair for 12 months. Even though there is a chair, the meetings are still a team effort.
    There has previously been some confusion regarding the chair of the meetings. Originally Ken S was nominated chair for 6 months. Ken was unable to attend the meetings for several months, and Lee joined the group in October 2012 and became the unofficial chair.In December 2013 it was suggested that a member of the group become chair again, and Ken S was nominated for a 12 month period. Nominations for the new chair person will be in November/December 2014.
  2. Staff titles – Full names are used on the doors for clinicians.
  3. Repeat prescriptions online – When a prescription request is submitted online through Emis Access a free text message can be entered. Members report that these messages are not always actioned. Grace explained that this is an Emis issue, as this message appears in a very small box and therefore can be overlooked. Grace will put this to the IT manager and ask for it to be raised as an improvement on Emis.
  4. Named GPs – As part of Enhanced Services, every patient who is 75 or over has to be allocated a named GP. A letter will be sent out to patients explaining who their designated GP is and why. They do not always have to see this GP, they can see any clinician they wish.

Positive comments from Margaret N for surgery staff were as follows:

“Margaret Nixon closed the meeting by saying that she would like to pass on a bigthank you to all the reception staff and GP's whogother through some very difficult weeks recently. The care and considerationshe was shown was very much appreciated and for her personally, the system really works.”

If you have any queries on the content of these minutes or wish for a revision of the details, please advise Grace or another member of staff before Monday 30th June.

Date of Next Meeting

Monday 15th September at 6.00pm at NorthgateVillage Surgery

Minutes 2nd June 2014 Page 1 of 4