Tower Hill Partnership Medical Practice

TOWER HILL PARTNERSHIP MEDICAL PRACTICE

PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP MEETING 6.6.17

PRESENT

PPG MEMBERS - 12 group members STAFF MEMBERS – 4 Adele Russon, Shamita Bhattacharyya, Kathryn Breakwell, Emma Breakwell.

1. The Chairman welcomed our new Patient Group Member.

2. Minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.

3. Over 50’s club progress and update

Adele has been working with some of the PPG members to put together an over 50’s club, 3 in total have now taken place and each meeting has had approximately 20 members. This group meet every other week and they run quizzes, chat and play board games among many other things, there are also many activities planned such as Tai Chi. The group is open to any patients registered at Tower Hill over 50. Any ideas for future meetings are welcome. A request for unwanted gifts for a raffle and books for a book exchange was made.

Adele has nominated our Patient Participation Group for their hard work and all the help in setting up the over 50 club for the “Patient Champion” category of the GP Awards within Sandwell and West Birmingham Commissioning Group. The Nomination has been successful and Adele will attend a presentation evening on 15.6.17 with a couple of Patient Group members to see if we have won this award.

4. Code of Practice

At our last Patient Group Meeting in January, 2017 it was suggested the Group should have a code of conduct to follow. The group read through a suggested code of conduct and made some alterations, this will be re-typed for review at our next Patient Group Meeting.

5. I want great care/NHS choices comments

Patients are asked to complete comment sheets regarding their care at the practice (comment sheets available at reception). All comments are then added to “I Want Great Care” site and show on our practice website. Patients are also able to add comments onto NHS choices; however people tend to add complaints rather than compliments to these sites can give an unbalanced view of the practice. Both NHS choices and the comments on the practice website were viewed and all were encouraged to add comments.

Any suggestions/information for the practice newsletter was welcomed. 6. John update on helping out with check in screen.

The use of the patient check-in machine has increased and most people like to use it. One negative is that the machine does not recognise multiple appointments and is unable to arrive patients with more than one appointment; a notice will be put above the check- machine to make patients aware of this.

The practice has had to shut down our current check-in machine and is awaiting a new machine as our current machine uses a system that is vulnerable to the recent NHS cyber- attack.

John is also currently promoting online access and Kathy explained how patients can register for this. Shamita also reminded patients that Skype appointments can also be booked.

7. Any Other Business

The practice is currently looking at ways to improve security on reception desks.

Dr Khan will become a permanent doctor at the practice from August 2017.

As we are a teaching practice we have several groups of students, observing clinics and seeing patients, year 3 Warwick Medical students are a recent addition for us.

The Chairman informed the group of a new app enabling patients to book appointments called myGP.

A request was made that a table be put at the front of the room for the Chair and managers running the meeting to sit at, to enable everyone to see and hear those chairing the meeting, this will be arranged for the next meeting.

A problem on a Saturday clinic was briefly discussed and Shamita said she would discuss this at the end of the meeting.

There were several prescription queries and a request for Tahir to attend the next Patient Group Meeting was made.

8. Date and time of next meeting.

It is hoped this will be in September; the group will be contacted with exact date and time.