Patient Participation Group Meeting

7th September 2023

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Chair and Presenting for Statham Grove Surgery (SGS)

Dylan Reynolds – Practice Manager (DR)
Dr Emma West GP Partner (EW)

PPG Members Present

Nicholas
Sallie
Jeremy
Sue
Victoria
Helen
Peter

Updates following previous meeting

Net Zero – aims update

We were again turned down for funding for solar panels.

We have got involved with a local group who fund net zero projects, one of the partners here is in contact with them, we have had some communication with them to iron out details about the nature of the building ownership etc and are awaiting further information from them, and DR will chase up.

Building maintenance

We have undertaken quite a bit of cosmetic renovation this year, improving lighting and painting much of the surgery. We have also had necessary electrical works done, this has proved quite expensive.

Infection Control Inspection

We had an inspection at the end of last year, this was very helpful and we have updated some policies and procedures in response to it.

CQC Inspection

We have not had a site inspection for a number of year and expect one soon, the last time we had one we had some PPG members present to speak to the inspectors about their experience, we would very much welcome some volunteer, to give feedback on patient experience.

PPG Funded Improvements Suggestions

PPG budget last year was spent on waiting area improvements, front door to be improved and website improvements.

Agreed this year that money will be spent on website improvements and a new disabled access front door.

PCN Update – Dr Emma West

Dr West discusses funding model for staff for the PCN, we have a First Contact Physiotherapist, a Clinical Pharmacist, a Psychologist, a Wellbeing Practitioner and social prescriber, we also have a care coordinator who is regularly liaising with our PCN staff in order to join up the care they are providing to patients, the wellbeing practitioner is in high demand and is able to help patients with complex social and health issues. Our care coordinators also help us provide care for our asylum seeker patients.

PCN Access Update – presented by Dr Emma West

The PCN have been contractually tasked with creating a plan to improve access and capacity for patients, this includes a budget to pilot schemes to improve access, and part of this budget will be spent on additional GP appointments during the winter. The surgeries within the PCN will also use a portion of the budget to trial individual schemes, SGS propose that they will pilot a smart triage system that helps reception triage online consultation enquiries in order to prioritise for GPs, this is currently done by GPs and takes up 3 telephone appointment per day, this will also help train our receptionists triage requests more effectively.

There is concern from PPG members that this might exclude patients who are not confident at using technology and advantage people who do, who may not be the most in need, for example elderly, partially sighted patients, patients with learning disabilities. EW says, this has always been something that SGS have been very aware of, this system would not replace current ways to contact the surgery, patients can phone for appointments, they do not need to use online triage system to access healthcare if they don’t want to, we would like this to free up time for GPs and to make patients options for contacting the surgery better and more efficient. This point is also made my PPG member that, patients who opt to contact online, should free up phone time for patients who don’t want to.

Feedback and points to discuss from PPG

How to access blood test results? A patient was told recently to book an appointment with a GP for a blood test result. In most instances this should not be the case, as long as blood tests have been checked by a GP they can be given to patients by receptionists, these can be text or email to patients as PDFs or printed out, they will also be available on the NHS app if the relevant permissions have been given, this can be requested at reception, all staff will be reminded.

Patient Access App

PPG member says she was quite shocked to see on the patient access app that they advertise lots of private services and directs patients to these. SGS does not advertise private health companies, we will remove this from our site.

Booking Consultations Online

A PPG member says that pre-pandemic it was much easier to book GP appointments via the website, there are some services available to book for example family planning but it is difficult to book a GP, can that be improved? DR/EW yes, we will increase GP appointments.

On hold message

Multiple points of feedback finding the long on hold message annoying, if on hold for 20mins, the long message is on repeat, can it only play once? DR to look into this.

Seeing the same GP consistently

PPG members feedback that they find it harder to see the same GP consistently than they used to, EW says SGS have a low turnover of doctors and that patients should ask to see the doctor they want to see, however it is the case that we have increased the amount of GPs we employ and lowered the amount of session they do, this is to help resilience and retention of staff, EW says this will be taken back to the other partner GPs to see if they can improve this.

Communication with PPG Members

We have an active email list of 83 PPG members, we would like to engage with them more. A suggestion is we do some simple online polls to gain feedback from the wider PPG, on opinions about the surgery and also how to better reach out to a wider demographic of our patients. The PPG email address will now be the one used for communication to the PPG group.

Next Meeting

Thursday 7th December 2023

Feedback for Patient Triage Online Access

Actions

DR to chase up net zero funding organisation.
SGS to go ahead with access and capacity pilot
PPG members encouraged to put their name forward to attend CQC inspection.
Patient Access App to be removed from SGS website.
Online bookable GP appointment availability to be increased
SGS to discuss improving consistency for patients seeing the same doctor.