The Vale Surgery
Patient Participation Group (PPG) Meeting
Wednesday 17.05.16
4pm-6pm
Hosts:
Dr Sivakumar (Staff GP Partner)
Uma Jesuthasan (Practice Manager)
Anushia Seevaratnam (Assistant Practice Manager)
Mike Morfey (PPG Lead Patient)
Attendees:-
KR (12367)
EM (3498)
GD (2786)
AS (9039
JW (2468)
KK (1368)
JI (2932)
BA (3503)
BA (3503)
RS (9081)
WH (502863)
DW (3440)
AM (3074)
BO (500249)
NP (7461)
RB (7462)
ME (501141)
Anushia and Mike (PPG Patient Lead) opened the meeting by welcoming all the patients with refreshments; we then sat in the meeting room to begin the meeting.
Anushia opened the meeting by thanking everyone for attending and we all introduced ourselves by first names.
Mike (PPG Patient Lead) said how happy he was to see such good attendance to our meeting.
Mike then went onto give a short talk about his role as the PPG Patient Lead and explained how the PPG fist started. Mike gave an overview of what a PPG is and the reason why he was keen to start a patient group for The Vale Surgery. Mike has taken a keen interest in making patient experiences better and we as a practice thank him for all his efforts and for working with us to improve upon our current services. Mike also takes part in local charity events and community groups as do some of our other PPG members.
PPGs can play a number of roles, including:-
· Advising the practice on the patient perspective
· Organising health promotion events
· Communicating with the wider patient body
· Running volunteer services and support groups to meet local needs
· Carrying out research into the views of those who use the practice (and their carers)
· Influencing the practice or the wider NHS to improve commissioning
· Fundraising to improve the services provided by the practice
The group will not be a vehicle for clinical complaints.
Please download a copy of our PPG Terms of Reference for further information about the purpose of the group and how you can contribute form our practice website:- www.thevalesurgery.co.uk
Anushia distributed a hand out called: - The Purpose of a Patient Participation Group. The NHS constitute states: - “NHS will actively encourage feedback from the public, patients and staff, welcome it and use it to improve services”. “Patients have a key role to play as partners in both supporting the development of general practice and in ensuring the sustainability of the NHS as a whole. An enabler to achieve this includes strengthening patients input to the organisation and delivery of their practice services through the development of practice based participation groups”.
Participation actively should always take into account barriers such as language, age disability, access to informative, great participation reaches people who find it difficult to their views heard, it doesn’t just speak to those who are already engaged and informed. Patients input must be sought and valued regardless of age, disability, gender, reassignment, married or civil participation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, gender and sexual orientation.
The purpose of the patient participation group (PPG) is to:-
- Discuss local incentives and patient group schemes
- Discuss patient care
- Discuss the GP patient survey
- Discuss suggestions for improvement
- Discuss local voluntary or community groups like Lambeth Healthwatch & Age UK
- Encourage peer support
- Discuss the CQC (Care Quality Commissioning) report
- Discuss local surveys
- AOB
Anushia then introduced the future practice Merger with Dr Guna’s practice.
Dr Guna’s practice is a small 2 GP partner family father and son partnership with a female locum GP called:-
Dr T. Gunasuntharam & Partners
Address:31 Prentis Road, London SW16 1QB
We are at the planning stages of merging
Questions and discussion from patient group:-
1) Which practices are involved?
The Vale Surgery & Dr Gunasuntharam and Partners
The Vale surgery (Stratham Vale, London SW16 5SE) and Dr.Gunasuntharam and Partners (31 Prentis Road, London SW16 1QB).
2) Where will the new merged practice be located?
The surgery premises at 31 Prentis Road, SW16 1QB will be closed and all patients from Dr.Gunasuntharam and Partners will be transferred to the merged practice located at The Vale surgery. The services will be provided from The Vale Surgery.
3) What difference will this make to me as a patient?
All services that are currently being provided by both practices will continue but the patients will have a greater choice of doctors and nurses and also have additional services such as phlebotomy and specialist clinics for chronic disease management.
Some services will improve due to the larger scale such as more extended hours.
The merger will allow more flexibility to improve the current appointment system such as:-
- Emergency on the day appointments with the Duty Doctor Monday to Friday
- Pre Booked Telephone Consultations with a doctor
- Emergency walk in clinic between specific times of the day
- Increased Extended Hours
- Two female doctors with a range of appointment times and sessions
- Increased Practice Nursing and Health Care Assistant appointments
- Designated clinics for Chronic Disease Management
- On-line Patient Access (appointment bookings, repeat prescription requests, text confirmation and reminder of appointments)
- In-house Phlebotomy
4) When is the merger taking place?
The practice is hoping to merge on 01.07.2016.
5) Who will the doctors be?
Dr T. Ramanan (M) (The Vale Surgery)
Dr S. Sivakumar (M) (The Vale Surgery)
Dr A. Khan (F) (The Vale Surgery)
Dr G. Nimalan (Dr Guna & Partners)
Dr Z. Khoory (Dr Guna & Partners)
6) What will happen to Dr Guna’s surgery? And the premises?
The practice will close down and the premises will either be sold or leased to a new tenant.
Patient’s records will automatically be moved to The Vale Surgery.
7) Are all of Dr Guna’s patients coming to the vale surgery?
We are expecting all of the patients from Dr Guna’s practice to move to The Vale Surgery however we understand that some patients may decide to move to neighbouring practices; if this is the case they can contact the practice they wish to move to and ask them to register as new patients and we will transfer their medical records to the surgery of their choice.
8) How will you accommodate them all?
The Vale Surgery premises has got capacity to accommodate 9,500 patients however currently the list size is around 5,500. When the merge takes place the list size will be expected to increase from 5,500 to around 8000 patients.
9) Why are you considering a practice merge?
Dr Gunasuntharam was for a number of years a single handed GP operating from a converted house in Prentis Road. He currently carries out 6 sessions and oversees some of the Practice business needs. The Practice is now largely run by his son, Dr Nimalan who has identified the need to be a part of a larger team to deal with the ever increasing work load and so wishes to merge with a neighbouring practice so that he can continue to work in the area and serve his patients along with the members of his existing team.
The aim of the merger is to provide a stronger base which will allow patients to have access to a greater choice of clinicians, a wider range of services and further extended opening hours from a modern purpose built surgery. Not only will this lead to more efficient services but it will also provide an opportunity to develop further innovation in the future.
10) Will the staff be made redundant?
No, the newly merged practice will employ all existing staff from both practices. More ICT equipment will be installed to accommodate the larger list size.
11) Will the surgery telephone number be the same?
The surgery will be keeping the same number with additional telephone lines which will enable better access to the surgery.
12) Will the surgery deal with patients differently?
The merged practice will endeavour to maintain the family friendly services that are currently experienced in both practices despite it becoming a bigger practice. You will see very little change in the services that you receive as a patient other than improved access for appointments and availability of more male and female doctors.
Anushia will publish and circulate the minutes from today’s meeting for all patients to read on the website. It will also be printed and left at the reception desk and can be sent out to regular members on request. Receptionists regularly update our PPG notice board in the waiting area, so please read it when you visit the Surgery.
Anushia and Mike then closed the meeting by thanking everyone for attending and confirmed that the next meeting will be confirmed very soon. Invitation letters will be sent out as usual and left in the waiting area for patients to read.