Patient Participation Group Minutes - 2nd August 2024

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Welcome and Introduction

DK introduced herself to the PPG members present. She is the new Personal assistant to the Practice Manager and has been working at Pembridge Villas Surgery for almost 2 years. Previous to that she has worked in various roles within the NHS since 2007.

Surgery Staff Update

• We have recruited 1 new female GP, 1 new nurse, who works 2 days per week but possibly will change to 3 days.
• We have also had a high turnover of reception staff, we currently have 5 and we have a new one starting with us on Monday. 3 of them are well established and have been here between 1- 3 years. 

Additional Clinical Staff

• We currently have 5 pharmacists spread across the week. 
• We have a Physicians Associate (PA) who is very knowledgeable, she works 4 days per week and sees a lot of patients face to face as well as doing telephone calls.
• PA’s has clinica training in examinations. She sees a lot of patients who have coughs, colds, UTI’s, earaches, musculoskeletal pains and dermatological issues.  This in turn, frees up a lot of appointments with the GP’s, for more complex issues. 
• She has a debrief with the GP’s 3 times per day to discuss her patients and gets their feedback and advice, she is regulated daily. 
• Unfortunately, a lot of patients refuse to see her as she is not a GP and can be quite rude to her about it. 
• Our aim is to help patients understand the role of a PA better
• DK has created a leaflet which we will put on the website, we will also email a copy to you to look at. 
• We discussed sending a text to all of the patients that the PA sees, for a 2-week period to get feedback and what percentage are happy with the service she provides. 
• What are the implications, under the new government? 
• The Royal college/GMC will provide further guidance on what they can and cannot do. 
• We discussed the possibility of creating a quarterly newsletter, and publishing it on the breaking news section of the website. We can discuss in greater detail and decide whether to go ahead with this

New Premises Update

Newcombe House:

In approximately 3 to 4 years, we will be relocating to Newcombe House which has been on the cards for several years, and is located on Kensington Church Street. 

It will have 13 clinical rooms which will provide more capacity and face to face appointments. 

We thought we could expand the surgery, for the community. Rooms could possibly be used in the evenings and at the weekend for other services, meeting or charities and hold open days for services, they could set up stalls to advertise their services. 

What ideas do you have? How can we move forward with this? 

• The practice manager has already started planning the patient engagement and will share the wording of them with the PPG members before anything is published.  
• PPG member suggested applying for 2 disabled parking bays outside the new premises. 
• The PPG members are positive about the move to Newcombe house and are willing to offer support and review the patient engagement questionnaires before we send them out. 

Patient Survey - Review Results

The practice manager shared her screen and we looked at this year’s results and compared some of the data to last year’s survey. Not all questions were to same. 

We have scored very highly and are way above the national average. Overall we got 91% the national average is 74%. This was based on 117 responses, which is a 19% completion rate. 

We scored 77% for:

• Easy to contact this GP on the phone. Last year we scored 87%. This is something, as a surgery, and the PCN are heavily focusing on. We are looking at ways to improve this.

How can we improve on this? 

We would appreciate PPG input on the messages on the menu on the telephone system and ways we can improve and shorten the patient experience.

We also do Friends and Family Test (FFT) monthly. These questionnaires are sent by text message. We also have paper copies in the waiting area for patient to complete. These comments we get back from patients are very good. We review them and look for any patterns etc... and these are shared with all staff and discussed at the monthly practice meetings. 

Access and demand - telephone audit result

• We have a very good balance of appointments and we are top in the PCN for access. We offer same day and next day face to face appointments, in addition to telephone consultations. 
• We also offer online consultation PATCHS, SystmOnline, and offer out of hour appointments at St Charles, with GP’s, nurses and HCA’s. 
• We also offer patients aged 65 and over appointments with My Care My Way 
• AI shared the telephone audit with the PPG members and discussed the comparisons. 
• In January we had 6 reception staff, and were at full capacity
• In April and May would have been worse off, because we were short staffed and had 3 reception staff +1 in training 
• In June we were short staffed and had 4 reception staff and + 2 in training. 

New PPG Members

We are always actively looking to recruit new members for the PPG. DK has been in touch with an old colleague who worked very closely with the PPG in a previous practice. She is going to set up a meeting with him, so he can share his advice, skill and experience on how to promote and encourage practice’s patients to get effectively involved and run their PPG.

One of our new receptionists, would like to Join the PPG, he has had some involvement with the PPG in a previous practice. He will come to the next meeting. 

AOB

It was agreed that the doctors would pass on any general complaints pertaining to the MSK service, directly to the PPG member.

Next meeting

TBC