Terrington St Clement Surgery
Patient Participation Group
Minutes of the Meeting dated10th August 2016 held at the surgery.
Present:Dr Imran Ahmed – Lead GP.
Sheila Young – Chairman.
Betty Lewis – QEH Governor.
Carole Clough.
Alan Sherfield.
Janet McCarthy.
Brian Fones.
Shirley Fones.
Barbara Hill.
Apologies for Absence. Juha Kivi, Vincent Coggins and Nigel Malkin.
To approve the minutes of the last meeting.
In the QEH Governors Report, “placements” should read placemats, otherwise minutes approved as a correct record.
Matters arising from the minutes (Unless covered elsewhere). None.
Chairman’s Report.
The Chairman was unable to give a report from the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee as the meeting was cancelled due to the sudden death of the Director of the Adult Social Services. The two subjects which were to be discussed, Children’s Mental Health Care and Looked after Children and the Scrutiny of Unexpected Deaths in Mental Health. They have been held over until the next meeting. There are working parties who are continuing to look into both of those subjects.
Sheila has also received an update with regard to Carers Grants and Essentials and also had a visit from the Care Navigator. She is systematically visiting Surgeries and is available to talk to Carers when they need advice. She is employed by the West Norfolk Carers Association. There was some concern raised in that this information has not been distributed out to Surgeries and therefore, Carerswill not know that she is available to give advice.
There are moves to improve the discharge from hospital, in particular with the more elderly patients, to make it much clearer and to get them visited properly with planned aftercare.
Sheila also reported that there is an advertisement in being for a Full Time Dementia Nurse Practitioner, which will be funded by Marie Curie and will be working out of Tapping House on a two year contract. She will initially be covering West Norfolk where the need is greatest. Sheila has asked to be kept informed.
Sheila has yet to reply to Sir Henry Bellingham with regard to his reply re The Fermoy Unit.
Treasurer’s Report.
Balance in the bank remains the same at £253.07.
QEH Governors Report.
To enable information to be given to all inpatients about their ward a placemat has been designed which will be relevant to each ward.A trial was held on Oxborough Ward. The information contained on the placemat tells you what the uniforms are, meal times, visiting times and other information which is useful to both patient and visitor. It can be changed very quickly as it is printed on paper and then laminated and they are produced by the Hospital Print Room.
There was a Governors Annual General Meeting held in the Hospital in July and the Annual Report is expected to be published any day now.
Staffing at the Hospital is still a problem. There has just been a new intake of Doctors.
Nursing Staff remains a problem and the issue of Brexit is a concern as no information is available. The Chief Executive and the Chief Nurse have had meetings with the Staff, as requested. Nurses are concerned about their future employment and the Hospital would be at a great disadvantage if we could not employ these nurses. Nursing staff do have to reach a certain level in English and the Hospital has provided English lessons to help. There is also Spanish lessons available for those who would like to learn Spanish.
Refurbishment carries on and the first of the two theatres has been completed and is in use. Betty was invited to see the theatrewhen it was finished. It is still as spacious, very modern and very high tech. A facility to call for x-rays, are returned to a large screen for the surgeons to see. There can be training sessions which can be sent down to the lecture theatre to enable students to see how procedures for operations are done first hand.
Governor elections will be held at the end of the year, although new Governors or outgoing Governors will remain static and only begin their appointments in February 2017,which is the start of the term of office.
There has also been an East of England Unified Drug Chart implemented in the Hospital which is very precise as to how it is written. This is to combat mistakes being made and will mean good medicine management within the Hospital.
Discharges are still being worked on as there was a crisis several weeks ago when the Hospital was absolutely full to capacity. Ninety people were discharged but the Patients needs still had to be put into place before this could happen.
On the 8th September there is a Parkinsons event being held at the Hospital starting at 1830 for 1900.
Surgery Report
Dr Ahmed will be on holiday from w/c 15th August for two weeks.
There has been a problem with the Management Phone department. The phone lines were hacked. It is called PBX hacking but does not allow the hacker to listen in. They hack the voice mail operation, then set up another account which is programmed to dial premium rate numbers. The Surgery were notified when the calls had racked up a bill of £2,500 in 48hrs. As a result all international call numbers will be blocked which will have an effect on our Patients, wishing to speak to a Surgery Doctor, who do spend time abroad and have previously rung the Surgery from their destination and previously got a reply. The Surgery will no longer be allowed to call any international number. Discussions are ongoing with the phone company but it is likely that the Surgery will have to pay the bill and an average company is likely to have a mounting bill of about £10,000 before it is spotted as unusual activity. However, there is still a potential risk that it could happen again so Dr Ahmed is looking into a different internet based system similar to the Gayton Road Surgery.
Forward Planning
Discussions took place as to how more Patients could be encouraged to join the PPG group and some suggestions were put forward. These included an advertisement on the interactive screen, notes to put in with Patients prescriptions and an updated poster. Sheila stated that she had the original copies which were used to encourage patients to take part. She will send copies to Barbara and see if we can update and use for a recruitment drive for more members. All Patients of the surgery are automatically members of the PPG and can attend all meetings.
The date for the Annual General Meeting of the PPG will take place on Wednesday 8th February 2017.
Discussions took place concerning the Christmas raffle and Sheila pointed out that last year problems occurred because the Printers let us down. To order the raffle tickets we need a draw date and a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize. As soon as this has been obtained the tickets can be printed. A 1stand 2nd prize has already been offered and so only a 3rd is now needed.
Members were asked if they will volunteer to sit in the Surgery to sell the raffle tickets and to let Sheila know when they will be available.
A ticket drum will be arranged by Sheila.
It was suggested that a letter be sent to local businesses asking for a donation of a raffle prize.
A date for the raffle was suggested for the 21st December but subsequently after a discussion with the Chairman, an email was sent out to all on the distribution list pointing out that the 21st December did not give us enough time to distribute the prizes before Christmas when most people would be at their busiest.
The date for the Raffle will be the 14th December 2016 and all sold tickets to be returned by the 7th December 2016 or two or three days later at the most.
Members Participation
The question was raised as to why Patients who were fit and healthy, did not need to see a Doctor and had not seen one for five years, would be struck off from their Surgeries list. Dr Ahmed clarified the situation and stated that the Patient would be written to but if there was then no reply from the Patient that is the time that they would be removed. It was seen as a retrograde step by some members.
Dr Ahmed reminded the group that the system for electronic prescriptions will be implemented in September. He was asked if a person would still be able to take their prescription to whatever Chemist they chose, as they sometimes used a Chemist near to their place of work. He thought that the Patient would have to nominate where they would get their medicine from. For those who pick them up from the Surgery nothing would change but he was unsure how other chemists were to deal with prescriptions.
Any other business
None.
Date and time of next meeting. 1730, Wednesday 12th October 2016.
At Terrington St Clement Surgery.
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