The Cedars Surgery

The Cedars Patient Participation Group

Minutes from meeting held at the Cedars – Tuesday 8th March 2011 (6pm)

Present:

Practice Representative: Debbie Revell (DR) – Practice Manager

Patient Representatives: (chairperson)(MC), (LC), (RT), (DT), (JF), (MH), (KO), (DP), (AK)

Apologies: (AS), (SB) (JP) (JH)

Agreement of minutes

The minutes from the meeting held on the 8th February 2011 were discussed and agreed.

Matters arising from the minutes of 8th February 2011

Disabled Bays – RT informed the group that he wrote to the council on the 10th February 2011 explaining that he had attended The Cedars Patient Participation Group (CPPG) on the 8th February 2011 and the practice manager informed the group she had received a reply from Dover District Council saying that 2 disabled bays were “in hand” for the practice. He was enquiring as to the timescale of the provision of these bays. He is still waiting for a reply. MC said she had also written to the council and she had actually received a reply informing her that a scheme was in place for 2 disabled bays to the south of the building, (we took that as being outside the main entrance) this was in the hands of the traffic consultant and hopefully a decision should be made by either the end of March or early April. She also enquired as to whether this would incorporate dropped curbs as the curb outside the building is very high. This apparently is the responsibility of Kent Highways and they would have to be approached separately. MC will enquire if this is planned. AK advised the group that it may be in our interest to contact Julie Rook, local counsellor to act on the groups’ behalf. It was agreed to pursue this through Dover District Council first and to approach local councillors in future if no progress made. 

Automated Telephone System – DT enquired as to whether we had thought anymore about the way our phones are answered. DR explained that we are aware that this is a problem and that we are trying to avoid going down the automated route if possible as we feel the personal touch is essential. Due to the high volume of calls and a practice list size of over 10,000 now it is proving more difficult to answer the calls within the acceptable 5 rings. The practice has contacted a couple of companies to perhaps go semi-automated, whereby the calls are answered automatically but re-directed to a free line, which could sometimes be the practice manager. This is very costly but we are still considering it as our service to the patients is very important. AK said perhaps we could have a system where the call is answered but put in a queue; at least the patient wouldn’t then feel they are being ignored.

Matters discussed at this meeting – 8.3.11

Complaints and Compliments – MC and DR had spoken prior to this meeting and it was felt that it would be a good idea once a year to discuss any complaints/compliments the surgery had received/dealt with. DR explained that these are discussed at a practice meeting with all the doctors, nurses and staff in March every year and learning issues or changes are then put in place. It was agreed by the group for DR to bring these along to the next meeting for discussion. DR will inform the group of any changes that have already been put in place following any complaints.

Name for Group – This was agreed on “The Cedars Patient Participation Group” CPPG for short. It was felt that participation should be retained in the title.

Aims and Objectives – The draft aims and objectives given to the group by the PCT were discussed and changes were made to accommodate the CPPG’s needs. DR to type up the new A and O and send to all members of the group for approval before the next meeting.

House Keeping/Terms of Reference – As above changes were made and DR to type up and send to members for approval.

Confidentiality agreement for the members of group – The group discussed topics regarding the practice that might require levels of confidentiality and DP agreed to take away the confidentiality draft document and adapt to suit the groups’ requirements. She will bring back to next meeting for approval.

Communication – The group discussed ways of communicating feedback from the meetings to all patients at The Cedars. We decided that a paragraph devised by MC should be placed on the practice website. DR will contact the company and ask for this to be added. Kent Link can also help with us setting up a dedicated CPPG website, DR will contact Richard and ask for his help. LC mentioned that it might be worth setting up a facebook page, this may attract young mums and a younger audience in general - LC to look into this and inform the group at next meeting. It was mentioned as to how we would feedback to those patients who do not come into the surgery or use the internet. A mail shot was mentioned but this would be too costly to send out to over 10,000 patients – DR to ask other groups how they tackle this problem. The minutes of the meetings will be left in the waiting area, anonymised of course. MC thought it might be a good idea to attend the doctors’ Friday meeting after the minutes of the CPPG are ready for discussion with the rest of the GPs, DR will put this to them. 
GP Commissioning – Briefly touched on this. DR explained that there are many changes that are coming in the next two years but as yet the doctors really were not sure how this will affect the practice fully. DR and GP from practice to discuss at another meeting when more information readily available. It might be a good idea for someone from the group to attend a commissioning board meeting – DR to enquire.

Membership – to encourage younger patients, young mums, disabled patients and people from different ethnic backgrounds to join, to gather an all round view of services the practice provides or areas where we are lacking or improvement could be made.

Meetings – The group members discussed the regularity of the meetings and it was agreed that these should be held every three months. LC agreed to take the minutes of the meeting from the next scheduled meeting.

Abbreviations – JF mentioned that she gets confused at all the abbreviations for groups within the health service and asked if these could be explained at the beginning. This has been taken on board and future meetings will reflect this. 

Next scheduled meeting to take place – 

Cedars Surgery, Conference Room at 6.00 p.m. Tuesday 7th June 2011

New members welcome!

Future meeting dates for your diary: 

Tuesday 6th September 2011
Tuesday 6th December 2011 
Tuesday 6th March 2012