Market Harborough Medical Centre Patient Participation Group s1

Market Harborough Medical Centre Patient Participation Group Minutes of Meeting held on 25th November 2014

Present :

Julie Simpson, Alec Browne, Sally Jones, Michael Edwards, Sheila Pendered, Brian Smith, Chrissie Willis, Gaynor Sandercock, Maria Bukowska, Mike Cheeseman, Annette Rogers, Dr Crowley for part of meeting, Natalie Pollard

Apologies:

Jennifer Besbrode

1. Welcome and apologies

2. Acceptance of Minutes of Last Meeting

Gaynor gave apologies for last patient only meeting, this wasn’t noted.

The minutes of the last joint meeting were approved and signed. To be posted on the PPG Notice-boards.

3. Matters Arising From Minutes

MIU: the results of the tender will now be 3rd December 2014.

Business Manager: the first round of interviews will be on 1st December 2014 and the second round will be 8th December 2014.

CQC: the recent article in the press grading Medical Centres is only a snap-shot of how they are performing. The Medical Centre and The Bosworth Surgery are both in the ‘good’ category, level 6. There is not date yet for an official visit, we should get two week’s notice.

The CQC set-up has changed, hopefully for the better: the areas they will investigate have changed and they are now employing staff who have previously worked in general practice. As part of their investigation the CQC will want to meet PPG members.

4. St Luke’s Hospital update from Project Group (JAS)

Julie gave a presentation regarding the St Luke’s development, the slide-show has already been presented to stakeholders and interested parties.

The group raised some questions during the presentation:-

The new buildings will link into the existing wards and current hospital building. There will be a physical connection for Xray and a bed-lift from the existing wards. The Endoscopy Unit will remain physically separate from the new building. The plan is for the current wards to remain operational whilst building is undertaken. It is not known whether there will be a mortuary on site.

The car park proposed will have capacity for approx. 60 vehicles. It is not known if there will be a pelican crossing from Leicester Road, it was planned to have a bus pull-in on site.

GP’s, MIU and Xray will have provision of 6 rooms (not necessarily MHMC).

PPG members asked if there will be any provision for ante-natal care at the new hospital - The midwives currently have space allocated at the District Hospital? Julie advised that staff will be hot-desking, there will be space available for Midwives, Health Visitors, Occupational Therapists and Community Staff. There will be specific consultant rooms.

Discussion re whether more consultants will attend: it was thought by PPG members that the endoscopy unit is not being used to capacity because there is not a recovery room. The service is great at the current hospital but the new state of art hospital might attract more people : patients and staff.

The plan is for building to commence January 2015 with completion planned for January 2016.

5. Recent changes to the group and Meet & Greet update (AB)

Christine Saint (Vice Chair) is currently missing from the group. For medical reasons Christine is currently taking a rest but is keen to return to the PPG and hopes to begin attending meetings again in the new year.

Maureen O’Malley has left the PPG due to work and health pressures. Maureen is keen to attend PPG meetings as a Voluntary Action South Leicestershire (VASL) representative if required.

Patrick Mawby has missed a few meetings, Alec will try to contact him and gently pursue whether he wishes to remain involved.

At the last Patient Only PPG meeting it was agreed to suspend Meet & Greet Sessions until 2015. Meet and Greet feedback statistics were circulated to the group, it was agreed to separate The Bosworth Surgery’s figures in future. Alec remarked that the results were mainly positive, Julie advised that they were important to see how best the Medical Centre and Bosworth Surgey fulfils the needs of the patients.

Mike noted that ‘staff attitude’ arose in the comments section: Julie advised that reception staff are undertaking a rolling programme of customer services training. Praise and negative comments from patients are discussed in reception team meetings. Brian commented that only 15 patients surveyed had booked on-line appointments, he felt this was a low proportion. Currently patients can only book on-line appointments with their registered GP, not with another available doctor. Nurse appointments are not available on-line because of the complex nature of different nurse clinics.

Chrissie advised that her GP only worked part-time so there was greater difficulty getting an appointment. Gaynor queried whether there were too many on-line appointments available : she could not book an appointment recently, whereas her daughter-in-law was able to book on line.

Mike suggested that the format of on-line booking could be changed : could patients book appointments with practice nurses on-line? In the past Steph Cowper, Nurse Practitioner had on-line appointment: this was because Steph covered everything and could see any patient, not all nurses can do this so they cannot have on-line appointments.

Car parking received a lot of comments at Meet & Greet sessions.

6. Virtual Membership Development and Update

The PPG were looking to develop a conduit to interact with the wider patients group: it was felt that this would reach a more varied group of patients and a better selection of issues, questions, queries and answers would be raised. However it has been problematic selecting the right format to do this.

At the last PPG patient only Meeting Alec presented a paper regarding using Facebook but this was very unpopular with Medical Centre Staff , Alec has since read information from the BMA recommending that PPG’s don’t use Facebook.

Dr Crowley expressed his concerns: and advised that The Medical Centre would not be able to respond to any confidential and private matters that might be raised on the Facebook site. Mike had suggested the PPG could use a closed Facebook site where only named members could interact and any derogatory content could be removed.

It was suggested the PPG could run a Facebook site independently : Dr Crowley advised that this would not have the blessing of the Medical Centre.

Alec had a document from NHS England about Facebook being suitable for PPG’s and advised Tracey Shepherd, Locality Lead for the CCG will be opening a Facebook site to communicate with PPG’s. Alec also contacted NAPP who said they would not recommend PPG’s use Facebook.

81 e-mail addresses of interested virtual patients have been collected at meet & greet sessions.

The website company the Medical Centre uses could create a separate PPG website or a link from the current web-site to the PPG could be created. Minutes of meetings could be available for patients to look at and talk about, a newsletter could be created. The web-site’s current comments and suggestions form could be utilised. It was considered that some patients who want to make a complaint might be more likely to raise it through a PPG conduit because they could feel inhibited complaining directly to doctors.

Alec feels that the current PPG section is not obvious within the Medical websites: Alec to discuss further at next patient only PPG, Julie is happy for changes to be made to make the PPG section better identifiable.

7. Family and Friends Test

We have been including family & friends questions in meet & greet surveys, however this is a government initiative and we now have formal Friends & Family Test Slips, a ‘ballot box’ and a display for the waiting rooms. Patients will be asked to complete the slips either anonomously or by name and the results will be analysed and submitted to the Department of Health monthly. Patients can also complete Friends & Family questionnaires online via the web-site.

8. Agree three priority areas for next year

Customer Service Issues: Feedback to PPG following receptionist training . Could Alec observe the training? Will it include The Bosworth Surgery.

Review Seating in the Medical Centre and The Bosworth Surgery. It was felt that the layout and the design of the current seating is working well, however the seats should be replaced with wipeable seats for better infection control : CQC do not recommend current fabric seats. Feedback from PPG members would be beneficial.

Flooring will be looked at next, the treatment rooms currently have hard-floors but consulting rooms do not. It is recommended that flooring continues up the walls so they can be sprayed down and disinfected .

Alec asked the group if there were any other priority areas to consider: Maria suggested the appointment system.

9. Any other business:

Brian asked Dr Crowley about prescribing Diclofenic, this was mentioned in the CQC grading reports in the press. Dr Crowley advised that Diclofenic is an anti- inflammatory drug that has been around for many years, it is cheap, well used and deemed to be a good medication for many patients. However it has been discovered there has been a slight increase in heart events in patients taking Diclofenic and it has been recommended that patients with heart disease should be changed to an alternative anti-inflamatory medication.

Annette asked if the Medical Centre could have more telephone lines for making appointments? Recently she could not get through by phone and drove to the Medical Centre to find there were no appointments that day and was told to ring after 1.30pm to get one next day. It was explained that there is an on-call doctor on duty every day and anyone with an urgent or emergency problem will be seen the same day : they are told to attend at the end of the surgery and may have to wait longer but will be seen. There has been an increase in the demand on doctors but not necessarily due to an increase in patients, doctors now have to see people with chronic conditions such as diabetes more often. The telephone lines open earlier at 8am and there are 8 receptionists on duty every morning. Nationally there are not enough doctors to fill positions and many surgeries are struggling, the Medical Centre is lucky because it is a teaching practice and location that there is not usually a problem with recruiting.

The embargo system exists because of DNA’s and if patients are allowed to book in advance there are more DNA’s. Receptionists ask patients the reason for their appointment because often they could see a specialist nurse and not need to wait for an appointment with a doctor.

Concern was expressed about the potential increase in the number of patients with the planned housing developments in Market Harborough.

The Movember display will be in the reception area until the end of November. It contains a lot of leaflets and information from Prostaid. Julie agreed the Medical Centre would give a donation to Prostaid in recognition of the loan of the display and providing information and leaflets.

Brian asked if the Family & Friends test is open ended: Julie said there is no closing date but it is mandatory, Brian said that he could put an article in the Husbands Bosworth village magazine about it.

11. Date and venue of next meeting:

There will be no meeting during December 2014.

Next Meeting: 20th January 2015 patient only at Market Harborough District Hospital 17th February 2015 joint meeting at Market Harborough District Hospital.