Minutes for Neston Surgery Patient Participation Group Meeting

Wednesday 22 Mar 2017.

1. Apologies for absence: Grahame Owens, Sue Gould, Margaret McKelvey, Ian Barr

Attendees: Heather Elkin (HE), Dr V Arista (VA), Ann Flanagan (AF), Joyce Coburn (JC), Yvonne Williams (YW), Michael Darby (MD), Sheila Kennedy (SK), Sue Gould (SG), Katherine Culshaw and Peter Folwell (PF)

2. Minutes of the last meeting Monday, 16 Jan 2016 were agreed.

3. The PPG were given a talk by two members of the CWP Primary Care Mental Health team, Elaine Carter and Steve Marsh. The main points were as follows: -

 The group is based in Chester with more than 30 staff and operate as a single point of access

 All GPs are able to refer to this service for conditions such as stress, anxiety or anything more serious. The team receives around 14,000 referrals a year of whom 10,000 opt in to the service. Patients are seen within 4 weeks for an appointment that takes 30-45 minutes

 The service initially triages and screens patients before using their stepped core model to assess them and thereby determine the most appropriate course of action

 The service is audited against such things as targets/outcomes and recovery rates. Approximately 50-60% of patients have successful outcomes

 The demands on the service has grown rapidly in the past 5 years

 Access to a consultant psychiatrist is available and GPs are able to call the duty nurse who can then speak to the patient themselves on the same day if needed

 Patients range in age from 16 upwards and self-referral is possible via one of the drop-ins that are held at places such as local libraries

 Treatment summaries are forwarded to the GP. The surgery GP at the meeting, Vikki Arista, deemed these summaries to be sufficient as the details are not needed

4. Surgery updates included the following: -

Dr Leike Spee-Horsu is to go on maternity leave, but will return at a later date to complete her training. In addition, the Surgery will be looking to employ a new salaried doctor. No reduction in available appointments is anticipated.

Some restructuring of the Surgery team is about to take place with Dr Washington reducing his sessions on a permanent basis from 1 May 17. Dr Washington will be covering morning sessions on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays plus the afternoon session on Fridays. Kitty Armstrong will be employed as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner with responsibility for triage of home visits, looking at blood test results and organising prescriptions. Helen Washington has unfortunately broken her arm so that there will be no appointments with her for the foreseeable future

The local GP cluster group (Neston Surgery, Neston Medical and Willaston) are examining ideas for a new 12- month project. Ideas include: -

employing a pharmacy across the cluster employing an IT specialist across the cluster exercise programmes a walking club

The subject will be addressed at the next cluster meeting on 4 Apr 17

12 surgeries with Western Cheshire are currently trialling E-Consult. The system allows patients to go online and enter their symptoms. A doctor will then decide on the best course of action. The Surgery will then ring the patient with advice, a prescription or an appointment. It is not yet known when or if the system will be rolled out across the county.

AF asked about a letter she had received from a company called Pharmacy to You. This service is intended to supply medications by post. HE has advised that this does not come from the Surgery and we have encountered some problems with this service

5. PF provided feedback on the recent PPG Chairs meeting. (see attached PPG Chairs notes)

6. AOB

SK proposed inviting someone from the Mental Health team to visit a future PPG meeting to deliver a presentation of their work. Action: SK to organise

SG had previously referred to a paper that PF had distributed relating to “Procedure of Limited Value” and subsequently put her questions in an email for the CCG. Phil Meakin. She was concerned that the paper in question might not be readily understood by members of the public. Phil Meakin responded to SG’s email by saying that he understood her points and would feed this back to the relevant CCGs.

PF reminded the team that the next county-wide PPGs meeting would be held on 26 April where all would be welcomed and asked for any topic matters that might be aired at that session.

7. Date of next meetings: Monday, 15 May 2017 both at 19:00 and Wednesday, 26 July at 19:00