Glenside Country Practice

GLENSIDE COUNTRY PRACTICE

PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP MEETING

25th June 2013

MINUTES

Present : Dr Ritabrata Ray - Partner

Gill Stafford – Practice Manager

Karen Bates – Assistant Practice Manager

Jeanette Holmes

Jennifer Reed

Peter Cox

Tony King

Valerie King

Apologies : Arthur Adams Michelle Abbott

Malcolm Brown Doug Carbine-Evans

Virtual Members : The Shires School Chloe Rayson

Diana White James Close

ACTION
Minutes from last meeting
The minutes from the last meeting were thought to be a true record.
Extended hours – At the request of the group, it has now been confirmed that our extended hours can be on a Monday 6.30-7.30pm at Castle Bytham and Thursday 6.30-7.30pm at Corby Glen as suggested by the group members at our first meeting in October last year.
This will be implemented as of 1st July 2013. Notices to this effect will be placed in the surgery and the website and practice leaflet will be amended accordingly.
Welcome to new members
We now have 5 new members of the PPG. These are Tony and Val King, Michelle Abbott, Doug Carbine-Evans and Jennifer Reed.
The group now consists of 15 members, of which 10 will be members that will try to attend meetings and 5 are virtual members, who will make contact to the group via email.
New Website
The new practice website is now up and running and the website address is www.glensidecountrypractice.com Over the coming weeks we will be updating the site with photographs of the surgeries and staff.
Online Booking of Appointments & Ordering Medications
Now that the new practice website is up and running, we now have the facility to allow patients to book appointments and order their prescriptions online.
To do this, patients must bring along a photograph form of ID, ie passport or driving license. Once this is registered on to the system you will be given a user name and password.
This is available to all patients over the age of 16 and all patients must come along to the surgery to register. Patients can not register their children or spouses for patient confidentiality reasons.
At present you can only book appointments with the doctors. The facility to book with the nurse is a little more complicated as she requires different length appointments for different procedures / examinations. We are looking in to how we can do this for the nurse also and will keep you updated.
You can only book 2 appointments at a time, to allow patients the facility to book a double appointment with a doctor if they feel they need a little more time.
When you order your repeat prescriptions, there is a box at the bottom where you can state where you want to collect your medications from and you can also type in there if there are any other medications you require which are no longer on repeat medications.
Dossette Box Service
The practice has always done dossette boxes on a weekly basis for patients. This has now been offered to any patient who feels this would be of benefit to them. The dossette boxes are now done weekly for a monthly period, so the patient still only has to come to the surgery once a month to collect their medications rather than weekly.
Fundraising for this issue has previously been discussed with the PPG members.
Dr Ray explained that the practice was paying for the dossette boxes for the patients, however, if any patients wished to make a donation this would be kept in the practice patient fund.
New Team Members
Unfortunately Dr Gupta will be leaving the practice as of the 3rd July. She is moving on to a partnership at a practice in Oakham and we wish her well with her move.
We are currently interviewing doctors and will let the patients know as soon as a new GP has been appointed.
In the meantime, Dr Ray and Dr Patel will be covering the surgeries with additional help from locum GPs until a suitable candidate has been appointed.
Any Other Business
Fundraising – This has been discussed at previous PPG meetings and money currently being raised will fund the dossette boxes for the patients, so that no cost is incurred for them.
Jeanette raised our previous discussion around the Christmas Hamper raffle. It has been decided that this will run this year from 1st December and Jeanette asked if the proceeds could be split between the practice patients fund and cancer research. This was felt to be a very good idea.
Jeanette also brought along a lovely towel which she had embroidered and will provide these to sell within the surgery to raise funds.
If you have any other ideas on things that we could raise money for for the patients benefit, please let Karen know at .
DNA Appointments – Karen has recently undertaken an audit of appointments which patients have failed to attend. See attached. The amount of hours has now risen and ways of helping this were discussed. After discussion, a suggestion put forward by Jennifer, was to contact the patients the day after they do not arrive for their appointment and this was felt to be the most effective method and may be trialled at the surgery. Jeanette contacted Karen and suggested that maybe advertising that we would contact them if they do not turn up, may be deterrent enough to help stop this happening. This will be discussed at a partners meeting over the next couple of weeks and the outcome will be discussed at the next PPG meeting.
Website – There is a section on the new website dedicated to the PPG and I would like if possible to add a photograph of the members together (or as many as we can get together). If this is agreeable with all members, I will take a photograph at the next meeting in October.
If there is anything else you think should be added to the page, please let Karen know.
Practice Newsletter – The practice newsletter will be started again and it was thought that putting the DNA figures in this would also highlight the problem.
Dr Ray also suggested that the main points from the Newsletter be displayed in bullet point fashion at reception for all patients to see. This was thought to be a good idea.
Facebook – We now have a new Facebook page, which we will use to update people on news happening in the surgery and health advice.
Date and time of next Meeting
The date and time of the next meeting is Thursday 24th October 2013 at 1.30pm at Castle Bytham surgery waiting room, refreshments will be provided.

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