June 8, 2024
Agenda
The Vine Medical Centre
Agenda for Patient Participation Group Meeting
Date – Wednesday 5 June 2024 at 1pm by Zoom Call
1. Welcome, introductions and apologies
2 Minutes of the last meeting
3 Actions from last meeting.
4 Triage and upcoming East Elmbridge Appointments
5 Pharmacy First Advanced Service Update
6 News from the Practice
7 Feedback from members
8 Members contact with Practice Manager
9 Any other business
10 Date of next meeting
Minutes
Vine Medical Centre PPG: Minutes of Zoom meeting on 8/06/24
1. John Coope welcomed everyone including Iona Sutherland as Practice Manager, together with Dr Sarah Murray and Giselle Hobbs. Apologies were received from Kate Fairbrother and Carla Wansy-Jackson.
2. The Minutes of the previous meeting were approved.
3. Actions from the previous meeting were discussed. John Coope apologised for lack of progress on the newsletter and would aim to get together with Carla to take this forward.
4. The Triage System. John Coope suggested that all members should view the Vine website. New information is posted regularly on this site, including aspects of the new Triage online system. Iona indicated that the new system was working well and that there had been few complaints.
4.1 The new system now included the East Elmbridge GP Plus services
which replaced the GP consultations offered by LIVI. The decision to
replace LIVI was made by 7 East Elmbridge GP Practices due to the
rising costs of LIVI offering patients less value for money.
4.2 The new service replaces the Access to Living appointments and
adds 17 new appointments on Tuesdays which Vine GPs will cover.
Access is via the on-line form but appointments can be booked up to
two weeks in advance.
4.3 A question regarding the degree of continuity during treatment was
raised and Iona indicated that a preference for the doctor you wish to
see can be entered on the online form.
4.4 Physiotherapy. Physio appointments are available through the
Practice staff on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons. Physios
will refer patients to GPs if this is required. Communication is shared
between Physios and GPs.
4.5 Secondary Care. Some issues were raised on the subject of the
tests and actions required relating to secondary care, and the order
in which they are carried out. The Practice noted that this was
somewhat problematic area at present as there were quite a few
rejections to requests for secondary care. It was acknowledged that
this was troubling doctors. Complaints should be directed through
the NMC though most patients are aware of the current NHS
problems and are allowing for this.
5. Pharmacy First. Iona mentioned that there had been some teething problems though this service was now working better. For a list of participating Pharmacies patients should visit the NHS website.
We were also informed that there is good local Pharmacy coverage and also that Pharmacies update the patient notes which are then shared with the Practice.
6. News from the Practice. Dr Murray was present and a query was raised about Practice Structure and the number of doctors at The Vine. We were directed to the Practice website to see individual doctors’ and staff details. It was also confirmed that Dr Anna Carswell had recently joined; and that Dr Murray was now a Partner.
7. PPG. Iona stressed that the PPG email account was for information only and not to be used to send any clinical information. The latter must be sent through Triage online in the normal way.
8. Communicating News and Information via the Practice website.
Iona proposed that if anyone would like to communicate items of interest to the PPG and patients via the Practice website please would they send a short profile of themselves together with the information they’d like to post to John Coope via johnacoope2@gmail.com
9. Date of Next Meeting. A date in September would be advised (and since then fixed for Tuesday 17 September at 1pm).