About the Patient Participation Group

 

We are pleased to say that we currently have a core of approximately 15 - 20 patients who have expressed an interest in being members of the group and are regular attendees at the meetings. This is supplemented by 4 non patient members who are the Practice Development Manager, the Practice Manager, GP and Admin lead.

Action Plan: 2024 - National Patient Survey, Practice-Led Survey, and Local Engagement Results

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The Aims of the Patient Participation Group

"To work with their practice to provide practical support, to help patients take more responsibility for their own health and to provide strategic input and advice. PPGs are based on cooperation between the practice staff and patients".

Purpose of a PPG

  • To give practice staff and patients the opportunity to discuss topics of mutual interest in their own practice.
  • A forum for patients and staff to improve and develop services within the practice by co-production.
  • To provide an opportunity for patients to make positive and constructive suggestions/ideas about the practice and specific medical conditions as an 'expert' or 'experienced patient'.
  • To encourage health education activities within the practice.
  • To involve further patients from the wider population.
  • To involve patient participation in future commissioning of Health Provision.

Benefits for the patient:

  • Patients will be more responsible for their own health.
  • Patients will have a better understanding and knowledge of the practice and its staff.

This allows up to date information to be given to patients and will inform what decisions can be influenced and what cannot. It will also allow the practice staff to gain an understanding from the patient’s perspective. It may also be useful for the chair to have meetings with the Practice Manager on a regular basis or attend management meetings of the practice. This ensures that two way communications are achieved.

  • Patients will have a forum to suggest positive ideas and voice concerns
  • Patients will benefit from improved communications between patients and staff
 

Benefits for the practice:

  • GPs and their staff will be able to plan services jointly with patients in order to increase their effectiveness.
  • They will be able to get help from patients in meeting targets and objectives.
  • They will have a forum to voice concerns, ideas and suggestions to patients.
  • They will get closer to the community for whom they care.

Being Representative

A common criticism of many PPGs is that they are not representative of the practice population. It is always going to be difficult to get a group that exactly reflects the demographics of our practice, and volunteer roles tend to attract those that have a certain level of confidence and free time, and have flexibility about working and earning money. However, a PPG is there to make sure that the patient voice is listened to and not necessarily always to be the voice itself. Therefore if you wish to volunteer please contact the General Manager of complete one of the forms in reception.

 

Ground Rules

These are important as a point of reference for behaviour for when the group meets, and were agreed at the first couple of meetings. We agreed that the group should not be a forum for pursuing individual personal complaints or agendas, that patient confidentiality is of the utmost importance and that everyone on the PPG should be treated fairly, equally and with respect.

 

Communication

We aim to make the group as transparent as possible. We will publish minutes of every meeting on this website. At the members’ request their names have been removed and replaced with their initials but other than that the minutes are a true and accurate reflection of what was discussed and agreed.

We are striving to have a mix of the following people:

  • Active volunteers – people with time and commitments to action decisions
  • Interested professionals – the doctors and administrative staff who work within and know the system and can be co-opted onto the group as required
  • Key supporters – people with influence within your locality, e.g. local councillors, community workers or business people who help raise the profile of the group, and improve the chances of your group finding financial or other forms of support

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Latest Meeting Minutes

  • Date: Thursday, 25th September 2025
  • Lead by: Antonia Makinde and Shereen Sinclair. Joined by Care Navigator Sallyanne.M
  • Members Joined: JM LB, WO, HL, SP, HD.
  • Apologies: S.ST
  • Meeting Time: 11am to 12pm via Microsoft Teams
 

1. Review notes from last meeting – Matters Arising

  • All

A warm welcome to the group, and a thank you to those that had joined from AM & SS. Today we had the pleasure of meeting with six PPG members online. We discussed the last meeting & agenda items.

Apologies were sent in advance from PPG member S.ST. PPG Member SP feedback that he is still awaiting the outcome of his appeal to the council to have allocated patient parking marked out outside of the practice. He will feedback once he hears anything else.

A member asked AM about the possibility of having one of the spaces in the car park allocated to patients who hold a blue badge. AM explained that due to our population size, it would not be feasible, as creating supply will only increase demand as one space would never be enough for the amount of patients that we have that use a blue badge, and that our aim is to keep the car park clear for clinicians who need to go in & out regularly.

AM explained that before we had the restricted parking in place with ANPR cameras, there were times that the car park was used by a few people that were not even coming into the practice, causing issues for patients awaiting home visits when our GPs could not get in or out easily.

 

2. Telephones – Activities and Statistics/ Appointments

  • SS

SS gave feedback to the PPG members on how the Care Navigating team have been doing with the incoming phone calls this quarter. We are still managing to answer up to 88% of all incoming calls to the practice, which has been a consistent figure now for the last 18 months.

 

3. Carers Champion Feedback and Update

  • SAM, AM

PPG members were informed that we have now appointed x4 Carers Champions at the practice. One clinical lead, Dr Jennifer Marin; One Care Co-ordinator, Shola Akinnusi; One Care Navigator, Sallyanne Morgan; and the practice prescription clerk Noreen Judd. They are the newly formed team dedicated to supporting our unpaid carers & providing advice and information.

AM reported that we are currently working on a cares information pack that should be ready to distribute to all carers by early in the New Year. HD asked if we have a current figure for how many people are on the list as being a carer? AM explained that we do indeed have this figure, and that 508 are currently listed on our register including both Adult & child carers. PPG Members WO & HD have agreed to proof-read the first draft of the carers pack once ready.

 

4. PPG Member Feedback

  • PPG

The floor was opened to the PPG members for comments, feedback and suggestions. JM discussed the website and asked that we further explain the timeframe for patients being offered an appointment. We have since updated the website to reflect the same wording that we send out to patients via text., outlining that If a request is deemed clinically appropriate for a GP appointment, it will be categorised under three levels of urgency: Same day, Within 3 working days, or Within 10 working days.

PPG member HD Reported being told recently by a clinician that she was ‘on the white list,’ & said that she was confused as to what that actually meant so wanted to ask us. It was explained to the group that all enquiries that come in are added onto one waiting list. As the GPs then triage the requests, the colours of that list change depending on urgency from green to red, but that was not something that we should have confused a patient with, as it is only used in the back office as a tool for allocating appointments depending on clinical need.

There was then a Joint group conversation about this year’s flu jab season and how it will work. The PPG were informed that texts will go out to carers & housebound patients on 1st October. WO asked what would happen to those that do not wish to be labelled as a ‘carer’ in their notes, but are carers that would need to have a flu jab? AM explained that they will be coded in the system as ‘Needs Flu.’

LB went on to explain that she had recently found out that we no longer have an osteopath on site, she explained that she thought that this was a shame as she believed the service was very welcome to a lot of Wells Park Patients who could be seen locally without having to travel.

HL asked if we could consider having more GP engagement in the PPG meetings, with at least one or two GPs attending every time? AM explained that we try to have a GP join us when we can, Dr EP being the last GP earlier in this year, however it is not feasible to do this very often as a GP joining means losing six appointments and having two would be the equivalent of losing 12 appointments for them to attend the meeting.

The practice deems it more important that we coffer patients this time who are on triage waiting list. AM explained that we do feedback all comments and suggestions from PPG to the GPs & full team, with the best example of this being that we now have the carers champion team in place as requested by PPG with a GP being the clinical lead.

 

5. Staffing – Goodbyes & Welcomes

  • SS

PPG were informed that we sadly said goodbye to one of our Care Navigating team KE at the start of the summer, however have since successfully hired TO who has now completed his third week with us. AM explained that we are aware of some upcoming changes to the team, meaning that we have started the hiring process to further recruit.

 

6. Latest Surgery Bid Update

  • AM

AM informed PPG that unfortunately the recent bid that we applied for to redesign our patient toilets was unsuccessful. SS explained that we since made the decision to tidy them up while we wait to reapply for another bid up by repainting the walls and changing the toilet seats in both toilets.

 

7. Invitation To PPG Members To Join Us For A Training Day

  • Dr SG

Dr SG joined the PPG meeting for a short while to explain that the surgery will be closed for staff training on the 20th November 2025. She explained that she was hoping that a few members from PPG would join us for the training day from 12:30pm to 2:30pm to be actors in scenarios that she would give them to act out while the staff received training on best practice in handling each scenario. We have had uptake from S.St, SP, JM, LB & HL who will join the wells park team for the afternoon of training.

 

8. Date Of Next Meeting

  • All

Date agreed for the next meeting: Thursday, 11th December 2025 at 11am.

This will be a face-to-face meeting for the last meeting of the year with Mince Pies, tea and coffee provided.