Berryfields Medical Centre

Patient Participation Group Meeting on 20/04/2016

Present: Dr Amy Kang, Dr Richard Wood, Dr Kim Wallace, Olive Lake (nurse practitioner), Emile Maynard (HCA) and Marieke Richardson( Reception Manager)

Apologies: Bob Gale (Practice Manager)

Patient present: Mr Robert Eastaff, Mr Stewart Bromfield, Mrs Peggy Allen, Mr Terence Brown, Mr Anthony Poth and Mrs Mary Poth, Mr Kenneth Roberson and Mrs Brenda Roberson and Mrs Heather Billingham.

Welcome new staff / Since last meeting Dr Sarah Atwell left, Claire Hughes( nurse practitioner)left and Sue Clark (reception).
Dr Amy Kang joined for a year (August 2015- July 2016), Olive lake, nurse practitioner, joined last year,
3 new ladies in Reception, Wendy, Debbie and Elaine, who are trained to be helpful, cheerful receptionists as we want to remain a friendly surgery.
Dr Richard Wood increased his sessions to 8 sessions a week.
New Services / Since the 1st of April this year we have had to give all patients access to their medical records and they can register for’ Patient Access’ by requesting a registration form from reception. This allows patients to view their medical records from the 1st of April onwards, request medication online, view results and communicate with the surgery through Patient Access. The link to Patient Access is available on our website. Any problems and we are happy to help anyone with registering.
We do not book appointments through Patient Access as we have a separate appointments system. Patients can sign up for online appointments on this system, please ask at reception.
Berryfields Medical Centre has also taken on the responsibility for the Buckingham Lodge Care home on Buckingham Park. This Care home is now just over half way full (can house up to 64 residents) and Dr Amy Kang has mainly been looking after the residents.
Update on Premises / We still do not have a suitable site to build a permanent surgery. We have started a petition and is was discussed that it will be a better idea to email a letter to patients which can be sent by patients to the relevant MP, John Bercow for Buckingham Park and David Liddington for Berryfields. Berryfields Medical Centre is growing very fast ( registering about 50 patients a week) and at this rate we would need another consultation room every 6-9 months.
Appointment accessibility / Discussion about the ‘Hub’ where all surgeries from Aylesbury Vale get their calls answered by a call centre and they then book appointments. This is happening in Birmingham and works well. Overall feeling from patients was that the ‘personal touch’ then disappears as people answering the phones won’t know the patients. This will free up money in surgeries for other things as you may not need as many staff in admin. All patients present at the meeting were happy with the appointments system as it is and are willing to wait 3 weeks for a routine appointment with the doctor of their choice.
Named GP / All patients have been informed of their ‘named, allocated GP’ and if patients would prefer to see another GP to the one they have been allocated then they are welcome to do so. We can change the allocation by request. The Named GP had to be recorded for all patients in the UK. Thisis also a way for each GP to process a fair amount of test results, medication requests,medical reports and any letters received from outside agencies which often all require more actions for the GP’s.
Chair Person for the Patient Participation Group. / We are hoping to appoint a Chair Person for the PPG. This will be confirmed sometime soon.
If there are any patients who would like to attend the Patient Participation Group Meeting please get in contact with Berryfields MC and we will be happy to add you to our email group for regular updates on any developments.
AOB / We discussed a request from a patient to see if it was possible to be reminded of upcoming blood tests as he needs one twice a year. This is very difficult as we have so many patients and we can’t keep reminding patients of tests they need doing. There is no system that will do this and the responsibility should be with the patient. We explained that the way we care for our patients is changing as the NHS want the patients to take more responsibility for their own health. We have put in place ‘Care Planning’ for all diabetics and this was explained by Olive and Emilie in more detail. The Care Planning will also be put in place for other chronic diseases like asthma, COPD etc. We do send out recall letters and texts for patients who are Asthma reviews or when we run our flu campaign.