The Surgery held an initial meeting, dated 11th January 2023 where 2 members made up the Patient Participation Group, alongside Surgery representation from the Practice Manager.
Topics discussed in this meeting were reiterated in this meeting.
Agenda
2 new members of the PPG were introduced to the group and what the format for a PPG entails. Following an initial meeting on 11th January 2023 where introductions had been made, some agenda items had been discussed for the Surgery to look into and for subsequent actions to be implemented. These agenda items were:
GNHS App and patient data
Following our previous meeting where difficulties were experienced accessing comprehensive medical records through the NHS app- the Surgery explained that initial restrictions had been implemented to reduce the risk of escalated harm in unknown safeguarding cases, with the PPG in agreement of the surgeries approach to protecting patients.
Positive feedback regarding recent respiratory clinic
PPG members expressed satisfaction after attending a specialist respiratory clinic. The Surgery shared that the SouthDocServices federation had since initiated their own specific respiratory clinic available for West Heath Surgery patients to be referred into. Whilst originally being based out of the Barnbrook Varsity site in Selly Oak, further locations are being explored in order to offer more capacity.
The West Heath Surgery Acute Respiratory clinics have since stopped, with funding allocated to general acute presentation clinics.
Overuse of text messaging system
Following previous feedback regarding the over usage of the text messaging system, the Group expressed concerns over the potential malfunctioning of the Surgeries automated text reminding system. No other concerns had been presented to date.
Nurse feedback- session times
Following previous praise of the care provided by the nursing team and the suggestion of increasing appointment times in order for a more comprehensive review, the Surgery reviewed this suggestion and whilst increasing GP times would result in the loss of to many appointments, the Surgery’s nursing capacity has allowed us to increase most nursing appointments from 10 to 20 minutes.
Whilst standard phlebotomy appointments will remain at 10 mins, the Surgery has made this change to incorporate further checks now required contractually for certain ailments.
CQC ideas to integrate with the community
Following previous interested in a fundraising opportunity, previous activities were explored however no existing team members were aware of what had been completed before.
Due to the local connections to multiple care homes, the ground suggested reaching out to support with event nights/ Christmas events within these homes, with Austin rose being named as a potential location. Management of the care home team have reached out to these homes to source any interest- this will then be communicated to the group once it’s received. Other ideas made by Surgery team members were a hamper raffle, with proceeds going to charity.
AOB:
Gratitude and recognition of services:
The group reiterated their gratitude to the Surgery team and in particular, their recognition of the pressures the medical administrative team have to face- a big thank you to the team.
How to chase up referral progress:
The gourp enquired if there was a process which could be put in place for patients to be updated on wait times for referrals: unfortunately due to the various specialist departments each having their own operational procedures (which in turn differs per location), their isn’t a standardised pathway which can be utilised. For any updates, contact with the referring department should be made directly from the patient. Should the patient require appropriate contact details, these can be provided by the Surgery’s secretarial team.
Covid-19:
The group asked for any updates regarding the next stages of the Covid-19 vaccination program. Unfortunately the Surgery doesn’t have any information at this time, although we predict that it will be ran in line with this years flu campaign. Further information will be shared once the Surgery receives it.
Publishing a catalogue of services:
Following the recommendation from the PPG during the last meeting to advertise a full itinerary of services in a non-digital format in order to reach a wider cohort of patients, the NHS advertising team has been contacted to develop a patient information booklet. Unfortunately, the initial draft was not up to the standard the Surgery expects, with this draft being returned for amendments.
A further meeting is to be arranged in early December- any agenda items or ideas wishing to be discussed can be forwarded to info.westheathsurgery_sbpct@nhs.net.
Ideas on how to increase our PPG or how to intergrate with the local community would be most appreciated.