The Castle Practice Patient Participation Group

Minutes of a meeting held on 25th May 2016

Present

Ted Richards (vice chair) Anne Lawrence (secretary) Dr. V. Manyweathers, Janet Plant, Pauline Keatley, Ann Ellis, Bryan Ellis, John Hookway, Christine Harvey, Doreen Pearce,

Dr. Negargar

  1. Apologies Ann Perkins, Mr. & Mrs F. Butler
  1. Minutes of the meeting held on 23rd March. These were approved and signed
  1. Items for discussion

a)Telephone and communication problems.

It was agreed that this could be discussed again after more time had been given to assess the situation.

b)Report from PPG Network Meeting held on 31st March

Ted Richards said this had been a good meeting. The special talks this time were on Rheumatism and Arthritis and Switch and Save and Winter Warm. The next meeting would be on Thursday 26th May (tomorrow!) when the talks would be on Palliative Care and Junior Drs and their current dispute.

c)Newsletter.

No contact from surgery. Dr. Manyweathers to speak to Wendy.

d)Report on CQC visit. - Ann Perkins.

As Ann was absent this would be included in the agenda next time.

  1. Report on Screening from Dr. Manyweathers.

Dr. Manyweathers said that the three main areas screened regularly were:-

Diabetes: particularly for retinopathy.

Cancer: Prostate, Cervical and Breast.

Aortic Aneurism

The reason for screening is to try to identify healthy people who may not be aware that they have a problem but may present with vague symptoms suggestive of a common problem.

Tests need to be simple and safe.

There needs to be an understanding of the disease and how it progresses.

There also needs to be a clear idea of what to do with a positive result and when there is one it can be cheaper to sort things out with screening than to treat the disease when diagnosed at a later stage.

There can be potential drawbacks to screening. Negative results may make people feel reassured and it is possible to get a False Negative or a False Positive and it is questionable that it is good to spend money on those kinds of tests.

Cervical screening is safe, smear tests widely available and have very low false results. The disease is well understood and treatment is successful.

P.S.A. tests for Prostate cancer are safe, acceptable and widely available. However there are problems with a high ratio of False Positives. The treatments can cause nasty side effects and statistics do not show that early diagnosis and treatment ensures people live longer. More research is needed.

Blood tests for picking up various abnormalities are safe and routine.

  1. A.O.B. Extra funding for Primary Care will be covered in the next PPG Network Meeting.

Dr. Manyweathers gave out leaflets covering conditions you can see the Pharmacist for.

Dr. Negargar to do a presentation next time on Forward View.

Dr. P. Wallace is retiring and will leave at the end of the week. As it was too late to be able to buy a card and get it to every member of the PPG to sign, everyone was asked to sign a blank piece of paper and give their best wishes and A.L. would purchase a card and put the greetings inside. He will be sadly missed by all.

  1. Date of next meeting.

This was fixed for Wednesday 27th July 2016 at 6.00pm.