Patient Participation Group October 2022

Attendance  

Mrs S Sandhu

Mr M Hibbert

Mr B Boyd

Mr J Tachie

Mrs K Kumar (Receptionist)

Mrs L Collins (Receptionist)

Dr S Manohar

Dr A Sinha

What does a patient participation Group Do? 

Help improve communications between patients and the practice

Helps improve the experience of patients attending the surgery

Helps bring the attention of practice staff, the practice perspective of the level and standard of the services provided

Helps patients understand more about the medical conditions / problems

First Patient participation group meeting was attended by 4 patients. The main purpose of the initial meeting was to discuss regarding the purpose of organising group and to determine the Chair and Secretary for future meetings.

PPG participants voted for Mr M Hibbert to be Chair and Mrs S Sandhu to be Secretary for the group.

Meetings will be held 4 times a year on a Wednesday afternoon at the practice.

Issues raised 

• Practice phone lines had ‘old guidelines advice regarding COVID isolation procedure’ – phone lines were updated post meeting 
• Can patients raise more than 1 queries during a 10 minute consultation? –  If patients have multiple queries they can always request double appointments at the time of booking. If at the time of consultations they have multiple presenting problems, the doctor would ask about all of them and prioritize the most serious/ potentially life threatening during the consultations. Doctor may ask patient to rebook for the other problems if it cannot be addressed during that appointment.  
• Doctors ask ‘How can I help you’ rather than continuing from last consultation – Advised the doctors are trained to ask open questions to allow the patients to set the agenda for the consultation and so the patients’ expectations can be addressed rather than the doctor assuming reason for attendance. The main reason for this to move to a patient cantered approach.  
• Seeing doctors face to face –  Advised patients can request any appointment to be face to face or telephone – there are no restrictions  
• Booking appointments – Patients are frustrated having to call every day for non-urgent appointments when appointments are full for day – We have opened slots for up to 2 weeks in advance for non-urgent appointments – this is to prevent the need of patients having to call daily if appointment slots are already filled. This has been working well and our patients have been giving positive feedback regarding this.  
• the agenda for the consultation and so the patients’ expectations can be addressed rather than the doctor assuming reason for attendance. The main reason for this to move to a patient cantered approach.  
• Seeing doctors face to face –  Advised patients can request any appointment to be face to face or telephone – there are no restrictions  
• Booking appointments – Patients are frustrated having to call every day for non-urgent appointments when appointments are full for day – We have opened slots for up to 2 weeks in advance for non-urgent appointments – this is to prevent the need of patients having to call daily if appointment slots are already filled. This has been working well and our patients have been giving positive feedback regarding this.