March 2013

Local Patient Participation Report

Establishing the Cedars Patient Participation Group

We enlisted the help of the Eastern and Coastal Kent PCT patient and public involvement team in order to initially set up our group. With their guidance we advertised in the local press and placed posters and flyers in the waiting areas of the practice. Our first meeting was held in October 2010.

Recruitment

We have continued to recruit patients by advertising our forthcoming meetings in the waiting areas, receptionists have approached patients personally and members of our established Cedars Patient Participation Group (CPPG) have set up a table in the waiting area themselves on various dates to promote and invite new members to the group. We have a dedicated page on our practice website www.cedarssurgery.co.uk for the CPPG which lists the dates of the forthcoming meetings and a general invite for patients to join us. There is also a sign up form for any new members who wish to join us. We have placed messages on the right hand side of prescriptions to reach a wider audience promoting our CPPG and have a dedicated notice board in the waiting room. Recently we have incorporated in our posters and on the website the option for patients who perhaps cannot spare the physical time to attend our meetings, to become virtual members and we could then consult them about issues raised and request their opinions about services. We have also recently introduced a text messaging service which we have used to send messages to our practice population with mobile phones to recruit new members. It has been suggested by one of our younger members to perhaps create a Facebook page for the CPPG, this is being considered. The practice has a lift to the first floor to accommodate wheelchair access to the meeting room in compliance with DDA regulations.

Profile of Group

The CPPG meet quarterly at the practice and we presently have 26 members from the practice population of 10423 ranging from 27 years to 88 years. This comprises of 18 female members and 9 male members. It was also a request from the CPPG members that they would like representation from the practice at each meeting other than the practice manager and reception manager. This consists of the practice manager, reception manager, 1 doctor and 1 practice nurse.

Aims and Objectives/Terms of Reference/Confidentiality/Constitution

These are made available to all members and are also on our website page and notice board in the waiting room. A confidentiality agreement is signed by all members before their first meeting to ensure all confidential matters discussed meet with information governance. Our policies set out in detail the purpose of a patient participation group and what part they can play in shaping the future of the practice and services we can provide.

Engagement

The practice manager regularly receives emails from LINKs with invites to meetings which is passed to members of the CPPG. We have two members who attend the regular commissioning group patient forum meetings and feedback to the next CPPG meeting. Representatives from LINKs attended our first two meetings to make the group aware of the services and support they could provide. Following our CPPG meeting, once we have sight of the minutes our chairperson attends a practice meeting to discuss any points that have been flagged up by members with the GP partners. 

Local Practice Survey

We chose to use the General Practice Assessment Questionnaire (GPAQ) version 3 which had been specifically designed for the Patient Participation DES. This was presented to the CPPG for discussion and approval at the meeting held on 20.11.12. We discussed in light of the forthcoming registration with the Care Quality Commission, devising some extra questions. These were agreed and incorporated in the forthcoming questionnaire. It was agreed that we would distribute 50 questionnaires per doctor at the practice, this would be 350, we did in fact distribute 450 to allow for any that were incomplete or we never received back. The questionnaire covered areas such as receptionists’ attitude, appointments, opening times, doctor of your choice, attitude and care from doctor and nurse, access, the extra questions covered, information sharing, patient care and the practice. We conducted the patient questionnaire over a three week period from 7.1.13 and enlisted the help of the members of the CPPG to assist in distributing them to a random wide audience of patients and also to assist any patients you encountered difficulties in completing the forms due to disability reasons, this was approved with the PCT prior to allowing the members to assist. This also gave them the opportunity to take ownership of promoting their CPPG as active members. The questionnaire was also made available on our website for patients to complete and send back to the practice electronically. This was promoted in the minutes from the meeting 20.11.12 which is available for viewing on both the website and in the waiting areas. We sent the results off for analysis on 1.2.13, we received the results back on 12.2.13 and these were then subsequently discussed with the practice team and areas identified flagged up for improvement if necessary. We discussed the results of the patient questionnaire with the CPPG at their meeting held in March 2013. One area discussed was the time a patient waits to see a specific doctor. It was addressed that all of our female partners only work part-time making it very difficult for them to be seen in a 48 hour window. Availability for any doctor is always available on the day. The members were very pleased with the results and felt that we offered a very good service and no improvements/changes were necessary. A copy of the results from the patient questionnaire was uploaded to our website for patients to view and placed on our notice board in the waiting area for patients to read. 

Complaints

Anonymised accounts of complaints received by the practice were discussed with the CPPG members at their February meeting. We have a practice population of 10423 and received 6 complaints throughout 2012/13. Full explanations were given and each one discussed individually with analysis of any changes/training that has been put in place or learning curves, to avoid the particular complaint happening again. 

Keeping Patients informed

We have a dedicated notice board in the main waiting room, website page and a quarterly newsletter which we consult the patient participation group members for content. We also provide the newsletter in large print as requested by some of the members in the group for the patients who have problems with regular type. We now have volunteers from the group who manage this board and monitor the content.

Opening Hours of Practice

The surgery is open from 8.15 a.m. – 6.30 p.m. Monday – Friday by telephone or in person. We also offer extended hours which consists of 5 morning sessions a month 7 – 8 a.m. and 2 Saturday morning sessions a month 8.30 – 11.00 a.m. These extended hours sessions are bookable in advance and walk-in on the day but telephone access is not available during these hours. One doctor and one practice nurse/hca is in attendance at each session. We also offer an online booking service called Patient Access which is available 24/7. It does require obtaining log-in details from reception to access this service. You can also order your repeat prescriptions and send non-urgent messages to the practice to obtain advice from your GP.