PPG Minutes 7th November 2022

 

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Present

Jean Poole (Chair and secretary), Tess Munden, Rob Munden, Richard Marshall, Lee Atkins, Trudy Gwatkin, Sharon Shaw, Kerry Harding, Dave Powell, Lee Davit, Rebecca Corbett-Pitman, Paul Cubie (guest)

Welcome

Jean welcomed everyone to the meeting

Apologies

Mike Garett, Cindy Garett, Barbara Bird, Dr V Smith

Approval of previous minutes and notes

Approved Tess Munden, Seconded Sharon Shaw

Matters arising from previous minutes

  • Patient seating – having withdrawn damaged chairs from use, consideration is being given to suitable replacements. RM/LA to continue to monitor. 
  • Practice information booklet revision –  action point outstanding. RM to ensure an electronic copy is forwarded to PPG for information.
  • Patient portal – date of birth entry will remain an issue as this can’t be changed and is a feature of many web sites unfortunately. 
  • New members – names of potential new members continue to be received but with very few responding to the welcome email. However, one patient has recently been added. There are now 8 on the email PPG group. – ongoing 
  • Appointment availability – access to blood test appointments will improve over these next few weeks with a new team member starting, alongside help from a “bank”  nurse and a member of the admin team who is also qualified to take bloods. Some GPs will also take bloods as part of a consultation if urgent.GP appointments should also be more available by year end as the main holiday season has finished. More appointments will also appear on line. - ongoing 
  • PPG leaflet availability – these are displayed and copies available on the PPG noticeboard. It was suggested that a supply be placed on the reception desk and on the waiting room tables.  – LA to arrange
  • GP survey – questionnaires were issued during September and form part of the GP appraisal system so are confidential. PPG members helped with the distribution and were thanked for their support. 

PPG Issues

  • Non-return of results – Richard explained the process of results checking and reassured the group that results requiring further action are picked up quickly via the clinicians task lists. Those requiring urgent action will be flagged directly by the lab. Patients should always be made aware of the result notification process by the clinician concerned and results can be checked on line if applicable. Patients are not notified of normal results but can ring for information if required.
  • Local networking – Jean has updated local contacts including other PPG chairs , Healthwatch, Southern Brooks and Age UK. It is hoped that some of the pre – pandemic network meetings can be restarted soon. – Jean to progress
  • GP lists and named GP – following recent publicity , Richard explained that all patients have a named GP who may/ may not be the “usual” GP due to care history. The practice recognises the benefits of continuity of care and do their best to support this but it was appreciated that the working patterns of some clinicians make that difficult. GP assistants are present in some practices but require a long training period both clinical and admin. These duties are covered within our practice by other team members, so it’s not anticipated that such a role will be introduced at present.

Guest – Paul Cubie (Social Prescriber)

Paul explained his role. The service provides a gateway to local services following a GP referral and regularly deal with patients with low/ moderate mental health difficulties, those who are lonely or isolated as well as housing, financial and debt issues, for example. A handout was distributed and is also on display on the PPG noticeboard and can be seen as a news article here. The lack of feedback to referring GPs was acknowledged and some ideas were discussed. RM/ Dr Smith to follow up. 

Courtside issues

  • Staffing update –Lisa Evans ( HCA) left recently and her card thanking the PPG  for their support at the vaccination clinics was passed around. Vicky Humphreys (HCA) will be leaving this week. 
  • Recruitment for some reception staff shifts was ongoing.
  • Flu / Covid vaccination clinics– Saturday clinics started 8th October and ran for 5 weeks to include all Covid vaccination eligible patients . As before the PPG helped with marshalling. Flu only clinics are planned over the next few weeks to cover those outstanding. To date the numbers of vaccinations given during the Saturday clinics are:- 
  • Flu – 2553, Covid – 2991 – total 5544
  • Overall flu vaccinations given since 7th October – 3030 
  • The number of vaccinations ordered is closely monitored to ensure sensible stock levels and minimum wastage
  • Video – in September, permission was given for the surgery to be used for a nursing recruitment campaign and PPG members and staff were involved as patients. The group enjoyed watching the resulting video which can be found on YouTube (search CMF nurses)  

Jean thanked everyone for attending and it was agreed to have the next meeting just before Christmas (with mince pies!)

Date of next meeting

Monday 19th December 2022 – 7pm