Hilly Fields / Brockley Road Medical Centre
Minutes of Patient Participation Group
7 January 2016
Attended: John Keidan, Janes Holmes, Mrs Garlick, Mr Garlick, Gladys Etolue, Robert
Ridyard, Neville McGhie, Symon Knightswood, Khaleda Amin, Malcolm Furneaux
Staff Members: Smita Malde, Wendy Cussens Secretary, Santanna Campbell Secretary,
Karen Reception Manager
Apologies: Monica Applewaite, David Seymour, Mr & Mrs Sutton, George Brown, Roger
Stocker, Jacqui – Manager BR
Minutes taken by: Wendy Cussens – Practice Secretary
The Minutes of this meeting have been recorded and typed as accurately as possible. If you feel, however, that any
information is incorrect please inform me by email, telephone or in writing – Wendy Cussens [email protected]
Agenda
Smita opened the meeting with forthcoming news:
Smita said she had looked at last meeting minutes and there was very little to action from these.

Leavers & Joiners
Dr Caroline Allison leaves at the end of January to take up a position nearer to home.
Louise Collins, Practice Nurse leaving in February
Wendy – Secretary retires at the end of March
Chris Blacktop – Acupuncturist leaves end of March.
Selma our Practice Nurse - her role will expand in time over both surgeries.
David our Health Care Assistant will work at Hilly Fields and Brockley Road – his role will expand in time
over both surgeries.
We are seeking a replacement for Louise Collins - Practice Nurse and hope to be fully staffed again as
soon as possible. The replacement will work over both sites.
Lizzie our Nurse at Brockley Road has reduced her hours.
Mrs Garlick asked if Nurse Appointments can be extended to 8pm?
This can only happen if a GP is also working up until this time. It is compulsory to have GP working along
side the nurse.
Mr Garlick said things a nurse should be able to perform the GP is doing, yes we agree this has been noted.
Physiotherapy Clinics were taking place here at Hilly Fields, currently this has stopped and we have no
Clinic but this will be re-instated in the near future. All referrals still go the Lewisham Hospital and they are
distributed to Clinics from Lewisham, our patients do not necessarily get seen here, they could be seen at
any number of surgeries.
Mr Ridyard asks for feedback re: Acupuncture Clinic - Chris Blacktop
Chris Blacktop has been contacted and he does have a Private Clinic. Patients can contact him directly on
07944 780019 or email him on [email protected] his rates will be discussed.
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
Neighborhood PPG meeting
Smita asked if one or two would attend this meeting- Mr & Mrs Garlick went last time
John Keidan expressed a wish and the Garlicks will go again. Thank you for this.

CQC visit
This will be in the very near future. We have no date as yet, but will be given at least two weeks’ notice of
intended visit. They request that 2 or 3 patients would come in on the day to speak to them.
They will ask questions about the practice and how the service works.

Prescribing
Feedback regarding prescribing as Karen deals with prescriptions.

Telephone System
Smita said she has spoken to the telephone people as we have been experiencing problems recently, they
said they have sorted out the problems, Mr Ridyard complained about the system, said appalling,
sometimes can detect attitude from staff. He said it is the technical part of the system that is the problem.
Smita said we cannot employ more staff just to answer the phone, this is why queuing happens and it will do
from time to time, the telephone people have looked into making sure calls don’t drop out of the queue. The
system here and at Brockley Road are the same, but at Hilly Fields we have many more patients. Smita
said we can’t keep changing the telephone system. We do not use 0845 system, some practices do use this
but we are against. The company which is private company makes money out of this and the practice
benefit also.
Karen said if a patient requires Duty GP as an emergency, then we have to ask certain questions. Staff
need to triage patients to the appropriate person and this is the reason for questions.
Mr Keidan said he is impressed by our service, we are friendly and helpful.
Several BR patients have expressed that they are very happy with the service staff give on reception, and
happy overall. Smita will feed this back to Jacqui. Smita said we have to take on board the compliments and
complaints, and we are going to put together a script for receptionist to work from. Mr Keidon said do staff
have the opportunity to get together to talk and compare any issues, Smita said there is not always enough
time to get together, they would like more feedback as they don’t necessarily know how they come across.

Cryotherapy
Not all GP’s do this and for this reason it is not on the website as patients would be booking online and not
necessarily for the correct GP.

Other Business
Mrs Etolue commented about ringing in for results and can’t one person be responsible for giving results.
Smita said 50% of patients view results on line. GP’s don’t have the time to call patients with results. We do
write to patients if there is anything urgent to inform a patient of however.
Mr Garlick said GPs at BR call patient re a blood result and why can’t this be done at Hilly Fields? HF have
many more patients than BR do so is not possible to call all patients with their results, only if there is a
problem.
Mr Keidan said the comments page on website is very good
Dr Malde said we are monitored by Lewisham CCG for hours, available appointments and telephone
appointments both at HF & BR. Overall we are the best in Lewisham.
Mr Ridyard asked about the merger, we have asked for this but it won’t happen.
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FFT
Jacqui said her results for the FFT are pretty good
The following question had a good response

“The patients recommending the practice to friends and family”
Brockley Road had 86 responses out of 94. We had 5 who would not recommend this practice, the rest
were happy to recommend – Nov
Dec 92% say would recommend
4% would not
4% not recommend or otherwise
Most patients say they are happy with the service, good friendly GP where doctors listened and were kind
and supportive, receptionist didn’t rush me, I can get an apt in 3 days, prompt service, very good nurses,
fully explained and treated me with care and kindness, GP turning up late, not child friendly, need children’s
books and magazines. Smita said we did get a changing unit but there was a problem putting in,
unfortunately we put this in the basement toile as have a lift, but this does not work best. So we need
someone to move things around and this is still to be done. Smita will check soap etc.
Mr Keidan said why is there not a section for patient to put their name if they wish to as currently it is
anonymous.
Mr Etolue said she tried three times and couldn’t put her reply there. Smita said she will find out why this is.
Mr Keidan asked about funding, Dr Malde said it’s a challenge all the time. The Building at BR is rented by a
private landlord at a cost of £48,000 per yr. now this is £54,000. When the NHS reviewed this they put a
figure of £28,000 – this is a challenge and this is how indirectly they re cutting funding. Costs only go up; we
are required to publish this on the website. We have maintained our staffing levels as much as we can with
less and less. Things are very challenging. We do not want to cut staff, we may need more staff in the future
as we are required to do more and more, we have requests all the time to do more things and they do
penalize.
Mr Garlick asked re: Junior doctors do we help? ie. Signing a petition? And could this suggestion go out to
other surgeries, we are part of a group of 14 practices working together – so if a practice not working well
they are helped by the other practices. We are thinking long term re cutting costs by merging. Dr Malde said
they are talking to other unions.
Mental Health – this service is failing, there are long waiting lists, stable patients will be referred back to GP,
in time we will all need to be more skilled, the more complex health problems a patient has their needs have
to be cared for in more specialized services.
Rooms are made available to other services on a regular basis, many services use our premises.
Mental Health services were discussed, how do we as a practice manage this, how are we able to offer
better service? GMM said we have a regular recall for these patients, for new patients they get seen on the
day, we have problems with drug and alcohol – to get them seen is not easy, we have upskilled ourselves,
we have access to emergency MH, GPs can call specialists, we have psychiatrists in A & E.
Mr Keidan said he really appreciates the service we give, and we need to keep the NHS from being
privatized. “The Save Lewisham Hospital” everyone is doing their best to keep the hospital running. We do
not want to have to send people to Queen Elizabeth.

Leading the Group
Smita said in other PPG’s there is a specific patient taking more of an active lead in these meetings. We
have no one monitoring the virtual group as nobody is happy to take on this role, and feed back to our
meeting. Two people in the past were expressing a wish to do this and monitor the V.Group once a month.
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The group said this would be good to be able to have more feed back which would give us more insight to
services etc. Staff could be present if the Group wants this.
Mr Garlick said he thought the way we operate currently is good, he also said we could have a box in
reception for ideas to be put, and a week before the meeting the questions are gone through and brought to
the meeting.
Action:
The 2 people coming in to talk to the CQC
Mr Ridyard’s comments.
The screen at BR will be up and running next week-Mark to do
Next meeting May 12th 12:30
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