Patient Participation Meeting Notes
Date: Wednesday, 6th May 2015
Present: Alec Wood (AW) (Chair); Mike Taylor; Paul Engle;Dr Cowan, Dave Saunders, Tracey Fisher, Joan Wilkes, Carol McRae
Apologies: Brenda Williams;
1)Welcome to new members – Chris and Phil Hazelgrove and Alison Jones were welcomed to the meeting. It was great to have new members joining us.
2)Minutes of meeting held 1st April 2015 – Agreed as an accurate record of the previous meeting.
3)Matters arising
First PPG senate meeting is to be held on 18th May at New Market House and a representative is welcome to attend with Alec who will be attending on our behalf.
Numbers of appointments were provided by Carol and are on the EGP website.
4)Practice newsletter
Carol has produced a copy of the newsletter and asked for feedback on the content.
It was suggested that a text message could be sent to those patients who have provided their mobile numbers. It was agreed that the newsletter would also be sent from the EGP PPG Website.
Action: All PPG members are to review the newsletter and feedback to Carol in the next week and by the 15th May at the latest.
Dr Cowan explained that she has been appointed as the Urgent Care Lead for the CCG and that there are a number of initiatives that are being progressed. One of these that is to be launched shortly is Think Pharmacy.
Think Pharmacy is an initiative that is being introduced locally to manage a limited number of minor ailments and minor conditions that can be prescribed easily by the pharmacy. This is to be launched in the middle of May. Majority of pharmacies on the Wirral have signed up to Think Pharmacy. There will be a wide-reaching advertising campaign for this service including on buses!!! The aim and objective is to go to your pharmacist for simple conditions and will only have to pay if they have to pay for prescriptions. It is hoped that the costs to the NHS of treating ailments by GP’s will be reduced and the investment in this service will deliver returns.
For information, each time a patient presents to A&E and gives their name, Wirral CCG incur a cost of £57. This is irrespective of whether the patient stays or whether they require acute or emergency care. It is a cost that the Practice will then be charged. There are cost implications for all aspects of care for patients.
5)Speedy Survey – Staff survey
The full Survey needs to be published on our website as soon as possible.
Please provide feedback to Alec if you have any suggestions or feedback for the survey.
The proposed action plan was discussed to be able to evidence that the Practice is taking action based upon the points by the Speedy Survey. Concern was raised to make sure that any quick wins have been actioned based upon the comments raised in the survey. We have had approximately 1,000 individual comments.
Action: All PPG Members to review the comments and see whether there are any themes or trends that have been missed.
6)Returned slips – Virtual Group and Blog, Carers Group
There were 76 general slips completed who expressed an interest in being kept in touch. 11 were main carers who expressed some interest in being involved in the PPG. 15 were Carers who would like to be part of a carers group whether this is a virtual or physical group. 14 people were people who said they were interested in joining the PPG which has led to 4 new members. We estimate that we have another 50 email addresses. If anyone is interested in running the virtual group, Alec would appreciate assistance.
7)Follow up on identified carers
It is Carers Week in June and St Hilary Group in Wallasey is hosting a Carer’s event on Wednesday 10th June. It is being organised by wirralcarers.co.uk. This is a group that we were not aware of when we hosted our Carer’s Fair although they appear to be linked to WIRED who we did have an involvement with.
Action: Alec to contact St Hilary’s PPG for advance details and later to see how successful the event was and will feedback to the PPG.
8)AOB
Memorial for Dr Williams
During the Speedy Survey, a request was received asking whether there was going to be a memorial for Dr Williams. Dr Bush is going to contact Dr Williams’ wife to see what form of memorial she feels would be appropriate.
Number withheld
A problem has been raised whereby patients are not receiving calls from the doctor when they have call barring functionality on their line. The doctors have identified this problem already and now have a workaround. This is all related to call barring of withheld numbers. It was suggested that we could include a message on the blog to ask patients to alert the practice to the fact that they have call barring in place. Receptionists have been asked to check if patients requesting telephone consultations have call barring and add an alert to the patient record.
Action: Carol is to check that all receptionists are aware of this.
Reception training session
Mike Taylor attended a recent training course given to receptionists. Mike reported that the training was very useful and that a lot was gained by the group who attended the session but that it would be a valuable exercise to review telephone protocols as a Receptionist’s Group to develop a Practice Reception Best/Common Practice. Mike felt that this was a powerful 3 hours and it was felt that everyone was interested in the materials and training. The trainer was a qualified nurse herself and this made a difference to the delivery of the training.
Action: Carol and Mike are to meet to discuss the findings and suggestions to ensure that the momentum is not lost from this session.
Update on Wirral CCG
Dr Cowan provided an update on the progress with the Wirral CCG now that it has been restructured. One area that will be looked at will include for example expert patient groups and how they feed back to the Patient Senate and the CCG. It may be that there are wider Wirral wide meetings occur on a quarterly basis with more localised smaller group meeting in between. All of these are suggestions are being considered at the moment.
Dr Cowan also provided an update on the current initiative looking at integrated care. WUTH (Wirral University Teaching Hospital) or Arrowe Park are looking to bring more integrated care into the local community to provide care in the community locally to them. WUTH have been awarded Vanguard funding to provide these services in the community.
Congratulations to Dr Cowan
Dr Cowan has recently been appointed to the position of Lead for Urgent Care for the Wirral CCG and the PPG congratulated her on her appointment.
For discussion at our June meeting
a)Finalise arrangements for July AGM at June meeting.
b)Discuss Other Quick Fixes identified from Speedy Survey
c)Will raise whether to have a virtual carers group and how to contact carers.
Future meeting items to be discussed at a future meeting
a)Notice board requires updating
b)Discussion in relation to the checking in screen
c)Discussion in relation to carers requirements and how to link in with them as a PPG
d)Discussion in relation to the appointment system including anecdotal evidence of patients making online appointments just in case they couldn’t get an appointment on the day.
Date of next meeting – Wednesday 3rd June, 6pm
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