Patient Participation Group (PPG)
Present:
Minutes
Thursday 29th September 2016
4.00pm
Morpeth Surgery
Chair - Dr Zoe Crichton ZC
PPG Coordinator - Nicola Hankinson NH
Sandra Lonsdale SL
Connie Hovsepian CH
Stephen To ST
Kathleen Bell KB
Rod Bramald RB
Peter Towers PT
Sarah Scott SS
Pat Fenwick PF
Adrian Spooner AS
Minutes (Key decisions and action points)
Welcome and Introduction
ZC welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked if everyone would introduce themselves. SS was
thanked for joining our group and welcomed.
Ongoing Actions: Each point was discussed, excluding the points to be actioned by
LM as LM was not present at this meeting.
PPG Logo (Appendix 1) - NH created a PPG logo for use on all PPG documentation.
This was shown to PPG members present all responses were positive. The logo has
been added to new PPG documentation, including the completed advert style
leaflets and the PPG job description and will be used on all future PPG
documentation. ZC stated that this is very good as it separates the PPG from
Wellway documentation. SL stated that it is eye catching.
PPG Job Description (Appendix 2) - NH has altered this with suggestions given by
PPG members. The PPG logo has been added to the completed PPG job
description. These are to be passed to ST and CH when they go into schools and
other groups. PT suggested that this could be tweaked to target specific groups as
needed. The group agreed.
Health videos/outside speakers to deliver Health talks to patients. Contact
Greystoke – NH has contacted the practice manager of Greystoke to discuss joint
talks, who will discuss this with the rest of their PPG. NH stated that Greystoke’s
next meeting is in November, but is hoping to have contact back before their PPG’s
next meeting, so that information can be passed on to our members at our next
meeting. NH asked the group to think about subject areas that could be covered
Actioned By:
NH
LM/NH
NH
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and to think about venues of where these talks could be held. ZC stated that Karen
Thompson is the lead GP for their PPG and that Greystoke work closely with KEVI
school in Morpeth. NH looked at minutes from Greystoke’s last PPG meeting,
where they discussed holding a teenager even at KEVI in the Autumn and are
considering a date for this to take place. They also discussed health events, which
we were also considering. They have suggested linking this into Men’s health week
in November. The group agreed that this is a very good idea and that banding
together would be very beneficial for both parties.
Advert Style Leaflets (Appendix 3) - NH created a series of leaflets (six) that were
NH
shown to members at the last meeting. The first of these were tweaked from
suggestions at the last meeting, printed and placed into waiting rooms for
patients. NH has now completed the ‘Reception tasks’ leaflet, with the suggested
adjustments, and has these have been printed ready for distribution (Appendix 3).
New leaflets, from some of the previously suggested topics will be produced and
hopefully made available for discussion at the next PPG meeting. SS stated that
with the telephone system for appointments, not as many patients visit the
surgery in person. SS asked if these leaflets can be added to the Facebook and
Twitter pages, NH agreed to upload these. PT asked if the sentence ‘This document
can be produced in additional formats upon request’ could be added to these
leaflets. NH agreed to add this in. Suggestions for further topics were made at the
last meeting, (what do GP’s do, GP specialist roles, medicines use and medicine
reviews). RB suggested looking at the ‘day in the life of a vet’ Morpeth Herald
stories for inspiration. NH has looked at the Morpeth Herald website and found
these stories. ZC stated that the most interesting stories for GP’s would be difficult
to do because of patient confidentiality. ZC thought a way around this might be the
format of an interview style, but this would be difficult to keep informative and
interesting, but short enough for an advert. ST suggested we invite a journalist in
to do this. SL stated that it would be really hard to select someone to do this that
would not put their own spin on this and it would take a lot of discussion for us to
decide what we are aiming for. SL suggested looking at Northumbria Healthcare or
County Council who have their own press office. AS asked what these articles
would be for? ZC stated that CH’s idea about encouraging more patients to be
involved and to learn more about us would be the aim. SL stated that this is one of
the main focus points of the Vanguard programme in informing patients that the
GP is not the only person that you can see and what the roles of other staff within
a practice are. AS suggested that we invite students interested in Journalism and
Reporting to be involved in this. The group agreed that this is an excellent idea.
PT suggested that information could be sent to NCBA at Reiver house to be put
into their talking newspapers and could also include them in their large print
magazines.
Promoting PPG to younger members within schools – ST stated that contacting
ST
the right people within the schools has been very difficult. Relying on the course
tutor to forward information to the students. ST stated that to implement ideas
from the group, more members need to volunteer their services and help to make
contact. ZC stated she would speak to the Deputy Head of KEVI. AS stated that it is
worth selling the benefits to students to do this as it hits several targets at once i.e.
getting students in surgeries to examine what goes on. ZC stated that there is any
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number of things that they could get involved with i.e. using the service from a
teenagers’ point of view etc. SL asked if there were careers offices within schools
that we could approach, targeting all roles within healthcare. ST asked who within
the group would volunteer to do this. ZC offered to make the initial contacts. ST
stated that he is hopefully going to have an interested student willing to come
along to our next meeting in November. ZC stated that KEVI are quite involved
with Greystoke, so maybe we should focus our efforts on high schools in Ashington
i.e. Josephine Butler. PT also suggested Bedlington High school.
Promoting PPG at fair days/outside meetings – CH stated that she spoke to Tom
CH
Roll, chairperson for the Golden Age Forum. CH has also been in contact with Kay
Yeo, NHS Ageing Well. CH will be attending their future fair days on behalf of the
PPG and will take some of our leaflets and posters to promote our group. CH asked
if some other PPG members would join her in some of these. SL stated that she
was present at Wooler village fair that had a stall for their local surgery, which
attracted a lot of interest over the day. SL stated that as Wellway is spread over
such a wide area there will be any number of village fair days that we could attend
to hold a stall of our own. It would be a good idea to join with other practices to do
this as most fair days are held on a weekend and a run over the whole day. SL
stated that we would also need to check whether a ‘stall’ is provided, as most fairs
require you to provide your own. PT stated that if you provide your own stall, you
will also need third party liability cover, as well as weights to keep the stall routed.
SL stated that garden centres often hold fairs which are usually indoors and on
weekdays and evenings. PT stated that Amble market would be an option also. ZC
stated that this would be something to go forward with and to consider starting
small, locally first and expanding. ST suggested we put our PPG advert poster into
local village halls and shops. ZC stated that we need to be careful about what we
put out into the public eye as we cannot ‘advertise’ the practice, but instead asking
patients of Wellway to join our PPG. CH suggested a poster be put into Newbiggin
sports centre. PF suggested the Bowling club could display a poster, which she is a
member of.
Contact Mental Health Trust to enquire about talks/workshops etc. – Not
LM
Discussed.
Contact Greystoke to update on MH services and enquire about joint talks – Not LM
Discussed.
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Other Updates/Items:
Top Three Priorities 2016 – The group agreed to continue these goals into 2017 and develop
further.
Assisted door opening at Morpeth – SL explained that the middle waiting room door at Morpeth
surgery is not an assisted door and she witnessed a patient struggling to open this door whilst she
was at the surgery. This door is quite heavy. SL stated that if a GP etc. comes to collect the patient
then this is avoided, but causes a problem otherwise. ZC stated that the patient toilet is also
located down that corridor, so there needs to be ease of access. SL suggested the practice install an
assisted door for ease of use within the surgery for mobility restricted patients. NH explained that
this has been looked at previously and to have an assisted door fitted will be very costly to install
and then to maintain. A suggestion was made to have magnetic door locks fitted, so that the door,
as a fire door, could be kept open and if there was a fire, the door would close automatically. NH
explained that this type of door is in place further down the corridor at Morpeth surgery. ZC
explained that these doors are used within the building at Lynemouth surgery and are great for
ease of access. ZC stated that the practice would look at this and get one of these doors fitted at
Morpeth surgery. The group agreed with this.
EMIS Access Online – ZC stated that lots of people are signing up to ask for access to their records
online. Records are checked by the usual Dr before patients being given access, as most records are
summarised back to 1990’s where doctors used to write things that perhaps wouldn’t be written
now. NH read out an e-mail from MD, who gave his apologies for not attending the meeting. MD
has used EMIS access for medications and repeat prescription which seems to be working fine.
Medical history only shows headline information and there is no longer access to letters etc. that
he had access to previously. This has been queried with Paula smith who has said that when this
was set up initially it was set up incorrectly in that all patients who had access already were given
access to everything. This then had to be removed, as extra confidentiality forms needed to be
completed before this information could be viewed by patients. We are currently waiting for EMIS
to ‘go live’ with the next update, which should provide access to this area. ZC stated that with the
change in system due in January, this will be something that will need to be set up for the new
system also, so is not a major issue at the moment. NH stated that if a patient needs a copy of any
of their letters, these can be printed off by reception.
Article for local publications – ST suggested that we produce an article for ‘CELL’ which is a free
local publication for Cresswell, Ellington, Linton and Lynemouth. ST has contacted the editor of the
publication who is willing to insert this into their next edition. PF stated that Newbiggin has a
similar publication called ‘The Point’, which is also free and is in all the local shops, which the same
article could be publicised in. ST asked if PF could contact the editor for ‘The point’ and query this.
PF stated that lots of organisations are represented within ‘The Point’ and the health centres
should be involved. PT stated that there is a similar publication for Morpeth. CH suggested we
could put an article into other local publications and leaflets also. ZC agreed we could do this to
promote the PPG.
Good Story Sharing – PT asked if any of our web pages have an area to share good stories and
experiences, as most press regarding the NHS is negative and good comments need to be shared
too. ZC asked PT if he would like to write a piece about his experiences, we could publish it in the
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practice newsletter etc. PT agreed to do this. NH stated that NHS choices online can be used to post
comments for various different services and that Wellway monitors comments made regarding
Wellway services and includes them in the patient reviews posters that are displayed in the waiting
rooms every month. Other review comments for this are taken from the Friends and Family
questionnaires that are completed by patients attending the surgeries. SS suggested using
Facebook and local online groups to promote good comments. ZC stated that using social media in
this way can become very difficult to manage and can very easily become a forum for negative
comments to be made and someone would need to constantly monitor content and send replies.
SS stated that with the new appointments system, not as many people come into the surgery to
see the information in the waiting room and that Facebook etc. should be used to bridge the gap
where possible.
Change in system – SS asked if e-mails could be used to alert patients to things happening at the
practice. ZC stated that we are going to be changing our computer system in January as part of the
vanguard program, so this could all change as we do not do this currently. ZC stated that we can
now see hospital results and reports electronically, so if a patient needs a scan, but has had one
recently, the GP’s can view these online rather than sending the patient for another scan, saving
time and money. ZC stated that most hospital discharges are now sent electronically also. This will
also be helped by the new system as it is what most practices and hospitals are using and will be
easier to share information.
GP Trainees – ZC stated that a practice in Wooler has a GP, Dr Lamborne who is a GP trainer and ZC
is a GP trainer also. ZC stated that they meet regularly with other GP trainers in the area. Dr
Lamborne uses some of his patients who are interested in Amateur Dramatics to come in and
participate in role play with GP trainees as part of their training process. AS stated that he was a
member of the people’s theatre for 30 years. ZC asked if AS would be interested in helping out with
some role play work with GP trainees for their clinical skill assessment part of their final exams,
which consists of thirteen ten minute cases that are usually played out by actors. AS would be
happy to help with this. RB is also interested in taking part in this. ZC stated that this is usually
based around challenging patients and situations. ZC will look into this in more detail. ZC stated
that currently this is done by herself, playing a patient, which can be quite difficult as she is aware
of what response she would like to get out of the GP trainee, where as a patient would not. SL
stated that GP consultations has changed for the better over the years and has become more
conversational rather than yes/no questions. AS stated that it used to be rather like a checklist and
is now more open and inclusive.
Update from Local Meetings – SL updated the group on some of the meetings that she has
attended surrounding the Vanguard initiative. Discussions have commenced around saving the NHS
money being wasted on medication usage. One such discussion centred on prescribing Paracetamol
through the NHS rather than the patient buying it and the cost implications for the NHS being
significantly steeper than a patient buying it. PT stated that to encourage patients to purchase their
own Paracetamol rather than getting this on an NHS prescription, the limit of buying 32 tablets
needs to first be lifted, as those patients who take this regularly would have to continually attend a
shop or pharmacy to buy this.
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New staff at Wellway – ZC updated the group that Kerry Boyle and Richmond Arcillas have been
appointed to the practice team as part of the Vanguard Pharmacists in General Practice
Development Programme and will be based across our sites on a rotary basis one day a week.
Wellway has also appointed Sue Chester, an Orthopaedic Practitioner who will deal with patients
who have certain types of musculo-skeletal health problems. Sue will be available from November.
LM – LM asked NH to inform the group that she has recently received an award for an article that
she wrote regarding mental health. This article was published in ‘The Approach’ CCA electronic
journal.
Ideas and actions for next meeting:
The group agreed to hold our next meeting in November 2016. All members to carry on with the
tasks they are currently working on and to update the group on the progress they have made, at
the next meeting.
This document can be produced in additional formats upon request.
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