PPG Minutes

Present              

• Peter Frazer: PPG Chair
• Joanne Howard: Practice Manager
• Dr. Appleyard: Practice Partner               
• Bilkis Peters: Secretary
• Christine Ewans: Burnley West Health and Wellbeing Team
• Alex Hoban: Burnley West Health and Wellbeing Team
• Patients: 9

Introduction and Welcome

Peter Frazer welcomed everyone to the meeting and explained that the November 2023 meeting had been cancelled due to sickness and staffing issues at the practice. He stated that he had met with Des McEvoy and arranged a meeting for February 2024 but that had to be cancelled as Des moved on to a new post at another practice and we had to wait for his replacement, Joanne Howard, to be appointed before this meeting could be arranged. Joanne was welcomed and introduced to the meeting.

Apologies for Absence

There were two apologies received from patients unable to attend.

Minutes from last Meeting

The minutes of the last meeting were read out by Peter Frazer.

Matters Arising from Minutes

Peter Frazer advised that he had met with the Practice Partners and Des McEvoy after the last meeting to discuss the PPG. He has also met with Joanne Howard since her appointment to discuss the PPG. He advised that any other matters arising from the minutes will be covered in the agenda for this meeting.

Agenda Items

Primary Care Network (PCN) Presentation
Christine Ewens and Alex Hoban (Social Prescribers) were introduced. They  gave a presentation with regards to what their roles are; setting up groups, connecting people to activities,helping to set up specific groups and services in their community to meet the practical, social, and emotional needs that affect  health and wellbeing.  Christine and Alex invited suggestions and ideas from the meeting as to what services may be appropriate for the Padiham area. They answered questions and advised that further information was available on the Burnley West Network website.

Social Prescribers will be coming into the surgery once a month starting at the end of May to talk to patients who come into the practice; this will be advertised on all of The Practice’s social media channels.

Dr Appleyard thanked the Social Prescribers for everything that they do and for attending.

On completion of their presentation Christine and Alex left the meeting.

Practice Manager Updates

Joanne Howard introduced herself and spoke about her past experience in the NHS (20 years).

Joanne then spoke about Patient Partner the new automated phone line. She explained that perhaps communication could have been better from the practice; however, this was partly because the practice didn’t want the system to be overloaded.

Joanne advised that Patient Partner is a 24hour automated phoneline but it is not a phone line for urgent appointments; it is for patients who want to book appointments further in advance when they do not need a same day appointment.

Joanne then discussed the usefulness and purpose of the PPG. She gave out a three page document to all present outlining the purpose and ground rules of a PPG, what a PPG can do and an example of a PPG activity timeline (the handout will be available on the PPG section of the Practice website). Joanne then suggested an example of where the PPG may be helpful for the practice in that she had data from a practice survey that highlighted three areas that patients believe the practice is performing well and three areas where patients believe the practice is not performing well. It was agreed to discuss the survey at next meeting and look at these areas of performance, however Joanne advised that the survey had been sent to 429 patients but only 126 patients responded which does not necessarily give an accurate representation of the views of the practice population.

Joanne concluded by highlighting a few statistics from the practice regarding Did Not Attend (DNAs):

In April 2024 there were 369 appointments that patients failed to attend of which:

• 125 were for GPs
• 25 were for Mental Health
• 98 were for Health Care Assistants (HCA)
• 101 were for Nurses
• 20 were for Physiotherapy

Joanne explained that there is an issue within the practice regarding abusive language and behaviour to members of staff. She explained that the practice has a zero tolerance policy and that she had sent zero tolerance letters to 5 patients the last 3 weeks.

Time and Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting will be held on Wednesday 11^thSeptember 2024 at 6pm (In response to suggestions that working people may attend PPG meetings if they were not held during the daytime)

The Meeting closed at 2:05pm