Sept. 17, 2024

Minutes

Minutes of Vine Medical Centre PPG by Zoom

17 September 2024

1 Apologies were received from Diana Elder, Carly Wansly-Jackson and Diana Elder.

2 Minutes of previous meeting. One or two members said they didn’t receive their minutes. But there were no alterations requested.

3 Actions from last meeting. Newsletter was on the agenda. As was Triage

progress.

4 Triage implementation. Iona reported that all was going well with the new system. In fact The Vine was now rated in the top ten of Surrey Practices, And the patient satisfaction rating was 97%. The Chair passed on congratulations to all concerned.

Some hospital referrals were still tricky at times. But members were generally content about the Physiotherapy service. One member recounted his own Physio issues and the need to be referred onwards to a GP. There was a debate about this problem but the answer seemed to be that patients may ask to see a GP using the standard form and to make a complaint in the same way, if needed. There were often options to offer pain management as required.

5 Newsletter. The Chair requested comments on the newsletter. It would only be worthwhile if more patients could see it. And not only in the surgery itself. The view was expressed that Government wanted more community involvement and so a newsletter would be an important tool, especially online. The Chair would discuss further with Carla and Iona to see how best to take forward this ‘work in progress’.

6 Terms of Reference for the PPG. The format was that now favoured by NHS England. The idea was to get more people involved. Iona suggested we might invite patients to come to the surgery to hear more about the PPG on a particular day. And Patient notices were thought to be the way forward without breaching Data Protection rules. There was a discussion about appointing Office holders but nothing was resolved at the meeting. We currently had 12 members and a Quorum was 5. It was agreed that we should try to get more members before implementing the Virtual Members option.

7 News from The Practice. An in-house electro-cardiogram was recently installed for patient use. A question arose about breathing tests but the surgery no longer has the equipment so patients are referred elsewhere. Spirometry tests were not an ‘in-house’ requirement.

There was a feeling that the practice could be doing more to support the older patients with the new form-filling. And this would need be kept under review.

Volunteers were requested to help with Flu clinics and some members stepped forward. There was debate about distributing a PPG info sheet on the day but we did not want to slow down the vaccination process.

Some patients in age group 75-79 were now being offered the RSV vaccination against the Repiratory Syncytial Virus.

The PPG offered a warm welcome to Dr Anna Carswell, new at The Practice.

8 Any Other Business. There was no other business.

9 Date of Next meeting. This would be in December, date to be advised.