Minutes of the Audley PPG

Minutes of the Audley PPG. Meeting held on Wednesday 11th November 2015

1. Present Kevin Shenton(Chair) David Hardy(Sec) Alan Durnall, Ian Wilkes Susan Edwards,

Mary Doherty, Mike Joynson, Julie Stokes (Practice Manager)

2. Apologies Val Pearson, Eileen McGuire, Joan Brassington, Susan Withers, Joan Polles

Susan Brockley

3. Minutes of Previous Meeting Passed as a true record

4. Matters arising from previous meeting

(i) Cancer and Hospital

Following a request from Alan Durnall at the last meeting regarding the press reports about GP’s receiving payments to stop sending Cancer patients to hospital, AD was concerned that this practice would be adopted in North Staffs, the Secretary informed the meeting that he had asked the question about this policy and its implications for North-Staffs and was told that this would not become part of North-Staffs policy.

(ii) War on Waste leaflets:

The Secretary told the meeting that following the last meeting where it was suggested that it would be better if the leaflets for the war on waste campaign were put into the prescription bags when patients collect them from the pharmacy, DH said he had approached Nicola during one of the flu clinics and she agreed with the idea and said she would implement the change asap.

5.Practice Matters

(i) Staff alterations

Julie Stokes told the meeting that Dr Asim had finished her training and would be leaving the practice in December and Dr Dubb would be leaving at the end of November but Julie said we would be having another F1/2 trainee in the near future.

(ii) Technical system change over:

Julie told the meeting that the change over from Vision system to the new Emis system would be taking place in February next year, the changeover would be a long process but Julie was confident that there would be only a limited effect on patients during the process, JS outlined the need for a number of staff training days before the system went live, Julie went on to say that this system would bring our practice in line with the majority of the other practices in our area and would open up the door to greater flexibility between different Health Centre’s and practices, a discussion followed highlighting some of the areas that could be improved by utilising the benefits of the new system.

1. (iii) Patient Survey

Julie was asked if the comment sheet that accompanies the survey results had been completed, Julie said they were in the process of being finished and would make them available as soon as they are ready. The PPG’s response to the survey findings would be discussed later on during this meeting.

(iv) Self-Help numbers leaflet:

Julie suggested to the meeting that the practice would look into funding the production of a self- help leaflet that could contain as many help line numbers or voluntary organisations in our area and the surrounding locality’s , JS asked if we would look into the design of such a leaflet and start to collate as many useful numbers as we could, the Secretary suggested that it might be beneficial if the members could have time to collate the numbers, the Chairman then asked every member to compile their numbers that they think could/should be added to the leaflet.

The Chairman asked the Secretary to email all members who receive emails reminding them of the need to get their suggestions in so they can be collated in a timely manner and to inform all other members who don’t receive emails through the usual method of contact.

(v) Life Cycle work:

JS informed the meeting that there was some maintenance work being planned for the surgery but most of the work will be carried out during out of hours to minimise the effect on the patients.Also some remedial work may have to be done during opening hours with as little disruption as possible.

Before closing the practice matters section of the meeting Alan Durnall asked Julie if there had been any information relating to the opening of the surgery to assist with the winter pressures, JS said that the practice had not yet received any information regarding the winter pressure programme.

6. PPG’s response to 2015 patient survey

Dr Sutton had produced the findings from the 2015 patient survey and it had been distributed to all the members of the PPG, there were a number of results that continued to be good or very good, but some areas produced either the same response or have been ignored.

The overall feeling from the group was that some of the questions needed to be framed differently or left out, one area that was of concern to some of the group was the on-line booking responses they thought that the system was not very user friendly.

The Secretary had received a number of comments from members who were unable to attend today’s meeting and these comments were introduced as part of the discussion at the appropriate time during the debate.

The meeting decided to give themselves time to digest the findings and the Chairman asked the meeting to contact the Secretary with any comments they may have before the 18th and then the Secretary would pass on our findings to Dr Sutton

7. Monthly Health Topic: The Secretary requested that the theme of dementia be continued for the foreseeable future as there are meetings planned for later this month with the practice and our group with a member from the CCG to try and put together a plan for making our surgery Dementia friendly and for taking the project to the wider audience in the Audley area, the Chairman said we would revisit this topic in the new year when it was hoped that we would have a clearer understanding of the work needed to achieve Dementia friendly status.

8. Locality/Congress report.

(i) LMC meeting

The Secretary told the meeting that in his role as patient representative on the Patient Congress and also the CCG Governing Board he had been invited to the latest meeting of the LMC (local medical committee) to take part in an open discussion on the plight of the Primary care system in the North- Staffs and Stoke-on-Trent area, DH explained to this meeting what the major concerns of the GP’s group and the depth of feeling that was quite evident at the meeting, he also offered to send the power-point outlining the GP’s strategy to all the members who wanted to see the full presentation.

The meeting debated the situation in the primary care sector of the NHS and concluded that the presentation showed the worsening position of GP’s and the acute difficulties that they are undoubtable facing in the present climate, the meeting highlighted some of the main areas of concern for all patients were

 The Difficulty in recruiting new GP’s

 The rate of loss of GP’s in local practices/ not being replaced

 The implied loss of morale within the primary care sector

The meeting also thought that the restrictions placed on GP’s through bureaucracy was another source of frustration. The Chairman drew the debate to a close by summarising that although the LMC had highlighted the continuing plight of the Primary Care sector in our area there was still some outstanding work being done by the GP’s and all the other health professionals day after day.

(ii) EPS Prescriptions

As reported at the last meeting the Secretary informed this meeting that following the latest Newcastle-North locality meeting and the concerns raised at that meeting he had contacted Mr Andy Pickard who was the NHS England lead for Pharmacy’s and invited him to one of our meetings to discuss the continuing problems that our patients are still encountering, DH went on to say that Mr Pickard had agreed to attend the January meeting. The Chairman suggested to the group that if Mr Pickard was agreeable it would be better to ask him to come to the January locality meeting and that way he would be speaking to the whole of Newcastle-North patients through the locality members, The Secretary said he would contact Mr Pickard and arrange the alteration to the meeting, DH suggested that because of the complex nature of the issues still being faced with this system of prescribing it would be beneficial to open the meeting out to all PPG members from all of our locality and he would contact all relevant people to offer them that opportunity.

9. Pink Week: The Secretary told the meeting that since our last meeting he had received the certificate confirming the amount we had raised during our flu clinic drive, DH said he had posted the certificate in the reception and wanted to pass on the thanks from the Pin Week organising group to all the members of our PPG

10. AOB

The Secretary informed the meeting that the Chesterton Heathcote Street practice were holding a Wellbeing event at the Red Street community centre and he said that the event was taking place between the hours of 10am till 2pm and everybody would be welcome

Meeting Closed Next meeting will be held on Wednesday 13th January 2016 4pm/6pm