PPG Minutes 7 February 2022

Minutes of the meeting held on Monday 7th February 2022 at 19.00hrs

Present: Cec Smith (Chair), Margaret Perrin (Secretary), Frank Soden. Tracy Doel, Charlotte Gorman.  Shayne Smith. Miriam Nicholls Denise Richards, Diane Vincent. Roger Lee

Guest: Peter Welsh (Brinkworth)

Apologies, Alastair Knight (Vice Chair) Jane Ingham Jenny Walker

Minutes of the last meeting were agreed.  Proposed Frank Soden   Seconded:   Shayne Smith.

Matters arising from the previous meeting. Nil.

Cec Smith Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked them for attending,

Surgery News:

The surgery has 16,470 patients at present and the practice employs 14 doctors. Each doctor has 15 appointments available each morning and 15 appointments in the afternoon.

The surgery are using all the permanent entrances and exits and the temporary one way system is no longer in use. 

In Oct/Nov there were 120 patients per week on average who were unable to obtain an appointment ‘on the day’ and in January this figure had reduced to 20 patients on average per week. In one specific week in Jan 60 patients were unable to obtain an appointment.

Patients requesting appointments are offered a choice of face to face or telephone consultation and the current split is approximately 50:50

Staffing:

Charlotte announced that Dr Neale was retiring and that her departure for the practice would coincide with Dr Yuka Ikegaya’s return from maternity leave.

Lisa Hepworth is no longer with the surgery and  the Carers Café which Lisa organised has been put on hold and is under review.

New staff

One new Advanced Clinical Practitioner has been employed to deal with on the day urgent problems.

Community Pharmacists: Patients should contact reception if they have any non-urgent problems. They may be referred to a community pharmacist, e.g., Boots or another pharmacy of their own choice who can dispense medication to patients for example for Hay Fever.

Future staffing shared across the five group practices:

2 Care Coordinators

2 Paramedics who will mostly attend to frail patients.

2 Physician Associates

As MPCC is the larger of the five practices the staff will spend a high percentage of the week at Malmesbury

Other areas of discussion:

There have been several patients who have applied to join the PPG. A cap of 14 members was set a few years ago.  At present there are 14 members of the group including Charlotte.

The group are going to discuss at the next meeting whether the PPG group should add to the constitution a clause stating that if PPG members miss 4 meetings in a year they could be asked to resign depending on personal circumstances. This clause would be added at the next AGM in August if sanctioned by the group members.

Expanding population. The surgery can cope with the expanding population at present but may have a problem finding more space in the building later.

A member asked if bookable appointments were available for the same week, it was explained that you could pre book appointments up to 6 weeks ahead either by telephone or online.

The group discussed the idea of changing the time of the PPG meeting. It was agreed that it would stay the same at present.

The surgery will not be offering patients the anti-viral pill, these are available centrally via the NHS website or App.

POD:

It was reported by a member of the group that a patient had been having problems with repeat prescriptions. He was unable to order via the NHS app, he then contacted POD and he was informed that he was due for a medical review so they would not dispense his medication. The gentleman in question did not have any notification that he was due a medical review.  Charlotte to investigate.

Floor covering: Charlotte has submitted a claim for a grant to cover the cost of replacing the flooring in the surgery.

Meeting closed: 8.15

Margaret Perrin

Secretary

Meeting dates for 2022.

4th April

6th June

1st August AGM

3rd October

5th December