PPGCF NEWS
Patient Participation Groups Chairs Forum
The newsletter for your
news, views and
meeting minutes
Issue No. 6
June 2015
EDITORIAL
April and May has been a strange two months for both people who work in the NHS and people like
us who have an interest in the NHS and its continued existence. Prior to the 6 week general election
campaign, things were starting to look a little better, especially from patient representative point of
view with new initiatives from CCG to help get more patient involvement in the way it conducts its
business. Then, with the start of the political campaigning period and the uncertainty of the result of
the election, new initiatives started to slow down a bit. Now that we have had the result of the
election, I hope that this means we will be getting back up to speed with engagement within the CCG
and that we will eventually hear from government where the NHS is heading for the next five years. I
also hope that the PPG CF, the Patient Council and the proposed ‘Local Patient Networks’ are used
to make sure that the patient voice becomes enshrined in the future of the NHS.
One of the stalwarts of our group, Pat World, has now left the PPG CF. Pat was with us in the days
before the PPG CF was officially formed and was always in attendance at our meetings. Pat was
always well informed and willing to share her knowledge with the group and will be missed at our
meetings. We wish her well for the future.
Alan Barnickle
MINUTES OF THE FORUM MEETING Thursday 14th May 2015
Attendees: Anne Care, Jacqueline Cunningham, Ann Burness, John Wright, Bernie Aucott, Alan
Barnickle, Steve Bennett, Ted Biggs, Girish Patel.
Apologies: Michelle Corsi, Keith Hulin, Mike Young, Fiona Northey, Steve Moss, Jean Moss, Gordon
Barber, Mary Parkes
Presentation:
Your Care Connected Update - Stephen O’Hanlon, Engagement Lead.
There has been a change of management structure since Jan Muir left and the engagement lead for
the project is now Steven O’Hanlon.
Brief Overview:
Y.C.C. allows a secondary care clinician to open a window to the patients G.P. records with the
patient’s permission. The secondary care clinician is only able to see the records and cannot change,
edit or print anything on that record.
Patients have the right to opt out of this service if they wish. They must give their permission for their
records to be accessed. Y.C.C. has been future proofed by being open ended. In the future, patients
may be allowed to see their records and have email or text notification when their records are
accessed.
Y.C.C. proof of concept was scheduled to end on 31st March but has been delayed due to a conflict
between the 2 data systems in use in surgeries across our area, namely TPP System one and is still
in the proof of concept stage until the end of May and will then begin the evaluation period..
If the project goes ahead, Clinicians(G.P.’s) will promote Y.C.C. to their patients to advertise its
existence. All patients will be written to when the phase 1 roll out of the project starts. Legal
guardians will be written to for children under 12.
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The list of benefits outweighs the list of ‘perceived’ problems.
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This project is in no way connected to care. data.
Update: The patient will always be kept informed of any developments and their views will always be
taken on board.
The 4 main organisations signed up to this are - UHB, HEFT, BSMHFT and Sandwell and West
Birmingham CCG.
Some of the lessons learned so far have been around patient engagement but, as the technical side
of this project is right, the teething problems will be ironed out.
What’s next:
Full phase one roll out is envisaged by November this year if the proof of concept has worked.
Patient Engagement events will be set up to explain how the system will work.
The web site is not very good at the moment but will be completely re-designed to be more useful
and effective.
The Chair thanked Mr. O’Halloran for his presentation.
Minutes:
The minutes of the last meeting were agreed.
Matters Arising
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The date of the last meeting on the minutes was incorrect and AB said that he would put it
right.
Following the last meeting the officers had been asked if a member who might wish to stand
for an officer’s position might shadow that officer in order to see how the role worked. The
officers, on reflection after the meeting, decided that it would be far too much to do it this way
and proposed that anyone elected to the post of officer would receive three months of support
to help them into their roles.
Chair stated that the ‘Terms of Reference’ needed to be looked at as, in its present form,
officers are only allowed to stand for 2 years.
The chair reported that the meeting between the Patient Council and ourselves to discuss the
future set up of the ‘Local Patient Networks’ had been arranged and that the PPG CF will be
kept informed of any and all developments.
Training Session for New Chairs
Having had some requests for help setting up a PPG, Ahmed Hussain from the CCG did a scoping
exercise to identify practices that did not have a PPG, and asked if they would like some training? A
training session was organised which was delivered by Anne, Keith, Jackie and John from the chairs
forum. A good turnout of 12 practices that included GP's, practice managers, staff and some patients
resulted in a very interactive session with excellent feedback. We are now in the process of
organising a further training session, date to be confirmed, in Erdington to accommodate practices in
East and North Birmingham who were unable to attend. So if you know of a practice that does not
have a PPG or a practice that would like some help please ask them to contact the PPG chairs forum
or ahmedhussain2 @nhs.net for further details.
The greatest obstacle for practices seems to be finding chairs for their PPG.
Results of the Election process and moving forward
The chair reported that there had been only 8 returned proposal forms for the officer positions which
was very disappointing. The result of all the proposal forms was that the incumbent officers were all
unopposed with the exception of one proposal for the position of Chairperson. It was concluded that
the three incumbent officers should continue for the next year. There were no proposals for Hon.
Secretary and the Chair asked AB if he would carry on in that role in addition to his role as facilitator,
to which he agreed.
Topics for Future Meetings
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A short discussion took place about future meetings and the chair said that we should get the
CCG in to give us an update on their initiatives going forward. BA said that she could ask Paul
Sherriff if he could do this for the July meeting.
AB put forward a suggestion for the January 2016 meeting. He thought that it would be an
ideal time for an update from the CQC after the first year of the new GP contract.
Meeting Venues going forward
It was bought up that we need to start thinking about the venue for our meetings as the cost was now
very prohibitive at the MAC. It was also a point worth noting that if we could move the venue around
the CCG area we might get better attendances.
The members were asked to start looking out for possible venues in their own area that might fill the
criteria for our gatherings.
Any Other Business
Steve Bennett from Four Oaks Surgery PPG reported that the PPG and the Surgery had got together
to produce a Community Directory for the area that contains contact details for many of the
organisations that were there to help people with all sorts of health needs. These included the Carers
Association, Youth Work groups, Health & Well being, Support for the Elderly, Volunteering, Faith
Organisations and Family SupHe will send a copy by email to the Officers for them to evaluate and
then pass on to the members.
The Chairperson then reported that the workload for the PPG CF and particularly the Officers has
increased to such a degree that it is becoming tiresome. All sorts of organisations and individuals are
now emailing us to ask us for help with their new project or idea. As we are all volunteers who give
our time freely it is particularly galling when people who are in paid jobs in the Health Service ask us
for information to make their job easier. The Chairperson said we should not let this dilute our focus
to our own PPG’s or the PPG CF.
The Chairwoman then thanked everybody for attending and closed the meeting.
The Date of the next meeting is
Wednesday 15th July 2015 @ the MAC. 6pm – 8.30pm.
THE BACK PAGE
An overview of the Open Meeting held at Swanswell Medical Centre on May 13th.
The event was hosted by the PPG in conjunction with the practice; with the aim of raising awareness
of the PPG with the patients, as well as sharing information of the services available to them. The
Chair of the PPG, Jackie Cunningham gave an overview of the PPG including past achievements
and current initiatives, a GP of the practice gave an overview of the ACE programme and a local
pharmacist spoke about the services he was able to offer to patients.
The event was lively with patients sharing animated conversation during the refreshment break, and
positive feedback from the event confirmed it was both useful and informative and that patients would
be interested in attending another open meeting. A comprehensive information pack was handed to
attendees, which included our most recent newsletter, our current interim survey and a PPG
application form.
The number of attendees was 36, and this was made up of 19 patients, PPG members and practice
staff, as well as guests from another practice in our LCN, the Chair of the PPGCF and a
representative from BCCCCG.
With regard to PPG Awareness week June 1st-6th, other PPG's may find this initiative useful.
Any submissions, ideas or queries to:
Alan Barnickle [email protected]
07788 593374
Disclaimer
This newsletter and all the articles in it are for information only and some aspects may not be
accurate. Although we endeavour to achieve complete accuracy, we cannot always guarantee it.