PENALVERNE
SURGERY
PATIENT
PARTICIPATION
GROUP
REPORT 2013-14
CONTENTS
Introduction
 Practice Population
PAGE
3 - 4
The Group
 Advertising the PPG
 This year’s meetings
 The Committee
 Patient Representation
4-5
4
4
5
5
Questionnaire and Action Plan
 Survey Questions
 Survey Results
 Graphs of the results
 Additional Comments and
action plans
5-6
5
6
6-8
8
Future Plans for Penalverne PPG
8
Introduction
The purpose of the Patient Participation Group is to ensure that patients are involved in
decisions about the range and quality of services provided. This includes patients being
involved in group meetings that may lead to changes to the services their practice provide. The
Patient Participation Group (PPG) is in place to seek views from practice patients through the
use of a practice survey. The outcomes of the PPG findings and the views of patients are to be
published on the practice website in due course.
Penalverne Surgery Patient Participation Group (PPG) was formed in July 2011. From the first
survey in 2011-12 we have made some adjustments to the Appointment booking system,
allowing patients to book morning appointments up to one month ahead. Many patients have
been happy with this change. In 2012-13 the PPG decided to look at a general patient feedback
survey on the services provided, from this survey the feedback was very positive as a whole,
but the waiting times to be seen needed monitoring. The surgery have been monitoring this but
it was noted that if a GP has an emergency or a complicated problem with one patient it is very
hard to stick to the 10min appointment slots which can have a knock on effect on waiting times.
The Doctors have looked at the findings and have implemented some changes to their booked
appointment schedule to alleviate the problem, or prevent it becoming an issue. Therefore the
PPG have felt very positive with efforts so far.
Practice Population
Penalverne Surgery currently has 5145 registered patients. The chart below shows the practice
population by age group and sex
900
800
700
600
500
male
400
female
300
total
200
100
0
0-15
16-24 25-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79
80+
Ethnicity has only been being recorded in the last few years and so not all our patients have
their ethnic origin documented. The practice asks for this data for new registrations to the
practice and opportunistically when they attend. From the current records we have a majority of
Cornish/White British/ Mixed British with 95.2% the other 4.8% were as shown below
Irish
European
Polish
Italian
Turkish
Cypriol
Caribbean
African
Asian
Bangladeshi
Chinese
Indian
any other
Declined to
state
0.46%
0.20%
0.17%
0.13%
0.07%
0.23%
0.27%
0.27%
0.17%
0.20%
0.17%
0.17%
2.27%
Advertising
We advertised the new group to patients by the following methods:





Posters in the surgery
Message scrolling on TV screen in waiting room
Practice Newsletter
Word of mouth
Through personal invitation by a doctor or nurse
Through members of PPG in waiting room with badges giving out questionnaires and
explaining about PPG group
This year’s meetings
Penalverne Patient Participation groups’ first meeting this year was held on 18th September
2013 at Penalverne Surgery at 6.30pm. The group agreed to complete a survey on “NonAttendance” as this was discussed as the last year’s idea but was complicated to do. The group
decided they would think of some questions and collaborate them via email until they were
happy they had a good Questionnaire. The Group kept in contact with each other virtually (via
email) until questionnaire was made up. Then volunteers agreed to be at the flu clinics to
dispatch the questionnaires. It was also decided that reception would have the questionnaire to
offer on behalf of PPG and a PPG member could come in when possible and hand them out on
normal surgery days. They would then collect and collate the results and have a meeting to
discuss the findings.
Pippa the Secretary collated the results and the results were distributed to all PPG members.
Another meeting was held on 21st January 2014, and the Chair (Jim) wanted to discuss the
outcome of the survey
The Committee
Jim was voted in as Chair again this year. The practice are still supporting the group by sending
a staff member and often a GP to the meetings until the group feel confident to meet without
surgery staff input, and then they would be available to the group via the chair should they feel
this necessary.
Patient Representation
The members of the group are mainly within the White British/Cornish/Mixed British ethnic
group. As per previous years despite our best efforts, we have found it very difficult to gain
representatives from other ethnic backgrounds. We hope to seek expert advice from other
service providers to find a way to better promote the PPG and encourage this group of patients
to become members.
The most represented age group is age 50 to 60 and the least represented is age 70 and over.
We have encouraged more members to join the group by a PPG member being in the waiting
room and explaining the purpose of the group and the valued input they can make to the
running of “their” surgery: the scrolling screen in the waiting room having a message and
details of the group on the website and in the surgery leaflet. Any information the group want
patients to know would be posted in the waiting room, or on their section of the website and
through practice newsletters. We are actively trying to encouraging young adults, patients
between 16 and 24 and 70 and over when we see them at the practice.
During 2013/14 we recruited 3 new members. During 2014/15 we would like to get more
members from unrepresented groups of patients.
Questionnaire and Action plan
As from September 2013, it was decided that the area to look at was non-attendance. The
survey was non patient identifiable to comply with confidentiality and Data Protection.
Action Plan
The PPG would design the survey, and reception staff/ PPG members would distribute the
survey.
Survey Questions
The questions were: Q1. Is there a reason you did not attend an appointment ?
Q2. Have you got a mobile?
Q3. If yes to Q2. Does the surgery have your number?
Q4. If they haven’t, are you willing for them to have so that you may receive a reminder?
Q5. Is it more difficult to remember an appointment which is made in advance?
Survey Results
Q1. Is there a reason you did not attend an appointment ?
“I forgot” x3
“Didn’t know” x2
“I was ill”
x2
“Never miss” x95
Q2. Have you got a mobile?
YES X51
NO X15
Q3. If yes to Q2. Does the surgery have your number?
YES X41
NO
X21
Q4. If they haven’t, are you willing for them to have so that you may receive a reminder?
YES
X26
NO
X18
Q5. Is it more difficult to remember an appointment which is made in advance?
YES
X25
NO
X40
Below are some Graph’s of the results
Q1. Is there a reason you did not attend an
Appointment?
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
I forgot
Didn’t know
I was ill
Never miss
Q2. Have you got a mobile?
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
YES
NO
Additional Comments from PPG
Again this year we had a better uptake rate on completing the questionnaires due to them being
completed on the day and not taken away by patients and them failing to return them. The
report has been quite challenging for the group. It showed that 94% of the patients asked Never
miss an appointment. Leaving only 6% of those asked the questions to give us some feedback
on why. In the last couple of years the PPG has helped improve the Patient booking system to
being able to book up to 1 month in advance, but the surgery have seen a rise in non-attendance
in this time. The questionnaire reports that the majority of patients say it is not difficult to
remember a pre booked appointment. So unfortunately we cannot help the surgery to decrease
the non-attendance rate but some patients are now more aware of the appointment text reminder
service that the surgery has and so we have helped with this awareness.
As the new changes to the appointment system are still not widely known unless patients
contact the surgery. The surgery will be working on this with the Patient Participation Group
over the next few years and also on the updating of patients mobile numbers for the text
reminder service
Future Plans for Penalverne PPG
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Advertise the group further but aim at other age groups etc.
Contact patients that have shown interest by leaving their contact details
Communicate electronically to capture younger age groups
Attach information slips about the group to Patient prescriptions
Promote Patient Participation group in waiting room via posters or members sitting in.
We now have a few new members and would like to introduce and explain the PPG’s
purpose and interests again.
7. Start a new survey on a different area that needs improvement from patient feedback.
8. The new area topic for the upcoming year has been chosen by the group as
NOTE: Please contact PPG chair Jim Harris on [email protected] if you are interested in joining
the group.