Minutes of the Meeting of the Patients Participation Group at Dr Azim & Partners

Friends@DNA

Minutes of the meeting of the Patients Participation Group at Dr Azim & Partners

2 March 2016 at 6 pm at the Surgery, 67 Elliot Road, NW4 3EB

Present: Shirley Rodwell (Chair) Janice Tausig (Minutes), Hitesh Parmar, Molly Savage, Gabriel Shaw, Judy Shepherd, June Wilson, Maureen – in attendance.

Apologies: Marguerite Brodtman, Ulla Chisholm, Joan Hale, Anwar Islam, Suzanne Ralton

Declaration of conflicts of interest: As last month

Minutes from Last meeting: Approved with no amendments

Matters arising:

a. Follow up to Boots enquiry b. Phlebotomy update c. Welcome pack update & written responses to non email patients update d. Clinicians’ Meeting re Notice Board and Website update e. Appointment choices on Website and in Surgery update f. Annual Survey update

We were unable to report progress on any of the above issues as Maureen was new to this practice and had not been briefed or given any background to enable her to facilitate their progress. Action: Janice to arrange a meeting with Dr. Azim before the next PPG. Maureen: to send Janice the survey shown to Shirley commending the surgery.

Agenda Items:

1. Introduction to Maureen Shirley and the PPG welcomed Maureen (Indre’s replacement) and said she was looking forward to working with us. Maureen explained her previous role in the Raleigh Close practice. As she had not yet been given an email address specifically for PPG, all communication is to go through Sabreen and marked “attention Maureen” for the time being. Maureen currently works Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 9-1pm.

2. Existing and New Roles with draft descriptions Shirley had drawn up a list of the existing voluntary roles people currently occupied, with roles that still needed to be filled. The list will be circulated to DNA Friends separately. Hitesh needed to review his role and this will be done with Janice after the meeting. Everyone in the PPG is invited to support the “regulars” or “core group” by either proposing themselves or nominating someone else (after obtaining their permission) who may or may not yet be a member of the PPG, provided they are patients of Azim and partners! All Friends should return their forms by ….. Action: Gabriel offered to amend the document before circulating it to all the Friends.

3. Eligibility to vote Following February’s meeting, the conclusion reached was that any Members who wished to vote should attend the next meeting on April 6th, together with those people who had been nominated for positions. Action: If this last point proves difficult for anyone please contact Janice by email.

4. Encouragement of new active members The PPG were unable to come to a clear decision as to how non-active members of the PPG could be encouraged to join the meetings, walks, etc.. Action: to be reviewed at the next meeting.

5. Mission Statement Dr. Bozok had suggested that a brief mission statement about what the PPG wanted to achieve may encourage patients to join. The Chair and some others felt this was not needed as the Purpose is stated on the notice board and is detailed further in the Terms of Reference from which a Mission statement could be selected. Action: Janice to bring an example of Mission statements for clarification at the next meeting.

6. Planning for Coffee Mornings and Walks for the next 6 weeks. It was agreed to continue with the Coffee mornings/Tea afternoons on a weekly basis in order to meet new patients from the Raleigh Close practice and explain the purpose of the PPG. These were arranged for the 9th/14th/30th of March.

Walks will be taking place in Hendon Park at 2:30 PM on Sunday 20th March, Sunday 17th April and Sunday, 22 May. All are welcome to attend. We meet at the cafe.

The issue of posters for both coffee mornings and walks arose. Gabriel offered to print quality designs, from another member of the group, on longer lasting glossy paper.

In the meantime the Poster team will place the dates above on the PPG notice Board in the waiting room at the Practice. Action: Judy to meet Maureen at the surgery to put up fresh posters tomorrow (Thursday 3rd March)

7. Practice Priorities - Update from Hitesh on work covered with Judith re DNAs. Hitesh outlined what he and Judith had covered with Indre but had been unable to proceed further as Indre’s contribution was missing and she had left the Practice. He raised the question of how big a problem Missed Appointments are, it was and felt that to do the subject justice, figures needed to be gathered on a regular monthly basis over a 12 month period. Action: This is to be discussed at the next meeting.

- Update from Ulla re Mental health This initiative could not be updated as Ulla had had to take her son to hospital. Action: Ulla to update progress at the next meeting.

- Discussion over taking responsibility for one’s own health It was agreed that the third priority for 15/16 had in reality not got off the ground as the people who had volunteered to handle it had not made contact with the PPG for several months. Information did however continue to be sent out through the NAPP monthly Newsletters, some of which covered this topic. Action: to be discussed at the next meeting.

8. GLL exercise It was confirmed that the PPG now needs to direct people to the London Borough of Barnet website for exercise groups through their Newsletter, rather than organising the groups themselves. Action: PPG to provide information/copy to practice for Newsletter.

9. Befriending No progress has been made here as despite volunteers offering their services, no patients have been referred to them as previously agreed with Dr. Bozok. Action: the Practice to discuss the viability of befriending patients – by phone and/or by visiting.

10.Improving the waiting area/ baby changing area/children’s area Complaints made by patients to the members of PPG at the coffee morning earlier in the week were discussed. They concerned the cleanliness of the waiting area; the lack of a children’s play area; the state of the toilets; unanswered phone calls and the way patients were being handled at reception and on the phone. There was also concern that a patient had been handed an out-of-date Complaints Policy and that there was no Complaints Policy on display in the Practice itself. Action: Janice to bring these matters to the attention of Dr Azim.

AOB None, other than issues emerging from item 10 above.

Next Meeting: Wednesday April 6th at 6pm