Chair Person: Margaret Blackmore (MB)

CLEVEDON MEDICAL CENTRE PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP Minutes of Meeting 4th Sept 2017

Minutes: Julie Davidson

Attendees: Julie Davidson (JD) Business Manager, Alison Lee (AL) Operations Manager, Martin Hime (MH), Pat Cowie (PC), Jennie Briscoe (JB), Mr Norman Fisher (NF), Mrs Shirley Fisher (SF), Heather Squires(HS).

Apologies : Mrs Ursula Marks, Mr Tim Sykes.

Minutes

1. Present and Apologies As listed above. Minutes of last meetings (20th May 2017) The Minutes were approved.

2. Update – North Somerset Community Hospital Work on the hospital continues to prepare for a reopening of the in-patient beds later this year. The in-patient ward was closed in April 2016 for significant refurbishment. The hospital is run by North Somerset Community Partnership on behalf of North Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group. Latest news suggests a reduction in bed numbers down from 18 beds to 8 beds. 3 further beds are planned to be utilised for local delivery of services such as blood transfusions. The members requested a walk-around tour of the hospital before it reopens so that they can all be well informed and share information in the local community. Action: Julie will request.

3. Events for 2017

 The Hearing Event has been running since June in the waiting room and has comprised a table of various patient resources to inform them about various hearing problems such as deafness, tinnitus, vertigo, opportunity for home assessments for hard of hearing patients etc., A couple of our PPG members also came along and had discussions with patients. It has been a success with many resources being taken away by patients, so we will support it for a little longer.  Public meeting Last year’s public meeting provided a good forum for patients to come along and meet some of our clinical team, and discuss access to services at the medical centre. We would like to repeat the event and we are considering a November date this year. The members would value an opportunity to discuss mental health service provision in our area, changes to prescribing in North Somerset, and GP services at the medical centre again. The date has to be set around availability of speakers, so we will confirm at the next meeting.

5. GP Survey in North Somerset Times

North Somerset Times have recently published an article which did not show GP practices in our area in a good light. In the same week, a national report was published which contradicted the local article. Many Clevedon patients having read the local article have written to the medical centre to dispute the findings of the survey and voice their opinion of the good work at Clevedon Medical Centre and high standards of patient care. Alison shared some of the examples at the meeting. ‘Friends and Family’ is a continuous survey for patients to complete in all GP practices, and results are published monthly. Clevedon Medical Centre is always >90% positive feedback every month. Eileen Jacques, representing North Somerset Healthwatch had added to the local article, endorsing the survey findings. The Members discussed whether Healthwatch had taken the right approach in this instance and wanted to understand the role of Healthwatch in our community and how Healthwatch make their findings representative of service provision for North Somerset patients. It was agreed it would be helpful to invite Healthwatch to a future meeting for a discussion. Action: Margaret will invite Healthwatch representative to attend a future meeting.

6. AOB  Alison explained that CMC are training some staff in healthcare navigator roles.  Martin asked if the eligibility criteria for NHS Chiropody service could be shared. Action: Julie will obtain  Discharge Letters from Weston General Hospital There are serious concerns from all practices in North Somerset regarding the poor quality of letters sent from the hospital, as well as multiple copies of letters, all at different stages of completion. This is a serious risk for patient care and the practices have highlighted the problem to the North Somerset GP responsible for Quality, and directly with the management team at Weston General Hospital. Margaret agreed she would raise the issue at a board meeting this week of Weston General Hospital. Action: Margaret.  Sustainability and Transformation Plan Julie shared further information about this over-arching committee whose role it is to save £100 million in our local healthcare economy across BNSSG. They have developed a plan over the last 18 months and are now moving into delivery phase on some projects. There are service redesign projects under way. Eventually, some services should move out of hospitals into primary or community services as there is no need to deliver them from hospital sites and they cost too much money to deliver in a hospital setting. e.g. DVT service. We will hear more in the future as development proceeds on changing how services are delivered locally and accessed by patients.

Date of Next Meeting : Monday 30 th October, 6-7pm, Brecon Meeting Room