MALMESBURY PATIENTS PARTICIPATION GROUP
04 April 2011
Present: Marion Burfield (Chair), Elizabeth Cheshire, Dave Grogan, Miriam Nicholls, Grace Walbridge, Jennifer Walker.
Apologies were received from Georgina Carter, Margaret Perrin, Ces Smith, Di Vincent.
Minutes of the last meeting were agreed. There were no matters arising.
Surgery Update:
The Surgery, like all other ones were still awaiting a great deal of clarification and detail regarding the sweeping changes that the Govt has planned for the NHS – Ie GP Commissioning – however the News ( radio /TV) this evening suggested that a pause or even some ‘back tracking ‘ might now be on the cards. Practices in the local area are working well together and are planning as best they could. It was generally felt that some benefits for patients could be achieved given the detail so far.
Budgets
Practice Budgets nationally have again been frozen – this is despite targets and workloads being increased. This in itself was putting a lot of pressure on the Drs and Staff. Unfortunately the Wiltshire PCT have also made dramatic funding cuts and our Surgery although scoring one of the lowest £/patients actually had one of the hardest cuts.
Patient Survey
Currently the Govt determines patient satisfaction by a National MORI survey – The results for this practice ( last 3 qtrs) can be seen on the web via the following link – As in all previous years we EXCEED both National and Wiltshire averages in all areas .
Any Practice can be checked by going to the website below
http://www.gp-patient.co.uk/
Future Patient Engagement
Practices have just been told that there will be a new national drive for them to engage with their patients and seek their views on services, both provided and wanted. Little detail is currently available but as soon as it is Dave will circulate it to the PPG Members. From the little available detail /overview of these plans Dave believes that our PPG will be able to embrace this new concept and could make everything a little more purposeful and effective, especially from a patients perspective.
Any other business:
It was mentioned that it is sometimes difficult to get an appointment with the diabetic nurse. Dave reported that the Practice was in a ‘handover mode’ with our Specialist diabetic nurse. This combined with a high volume of chronic disease screening appointments being made during Feb and Mar will made access a lilttle harder than is usual.
Guest Speaker
Emma Newby gave a presentation on her McTimoney Chiropractic work.
She works on Tuesdays at the Health Centre, also at the Sherston Surgery and does a clinic at her home. This type of chiropractic has been going for 50 years. It is more gentle that the traditional kind and is governed by the same Board. It is a whole body technique, giving gentle adjustment by hand at the point of need. Although she is qualified to do Xrays, she doesn’t see the need to do them for her work. She always discusses needs with patients to assess suitability before making appointments. Sessions usually last for 45 minutes. Her service is not covered by the NHS, so patients /clients will be seeing her on a private, fee paying basis. She was thanked ,for giving an interesting talk and explanation.
Date of next meeting: this will be on 6 June 2011 at 7pm