The minutes of the meeting held on 27th April were approved, there were no matters arising.
Apologies, welcomes and introductions
The chair welcomed two new members from the Brooklyn Surgery in Heanor to the PPG.
Staff introduced themselves, explaining their roles within the practice. The chair explained that in addition to administrative staff the group sometimes had clinicians attend meetings to talk about their particular roles within RPC and occasionally also external healthcare and welfare providers e.g. Derbyshire Carers or The Edge Ministries.
Practice Update
- The practice reported that although it had taken a lot longer than anticipated, the refurbishment of rooms upstairs at Rectory Road Surgery (Staveley) had been completed and with new equipment due shortly it was hope that nurses would be occupying them by the end of this month.
- As discussed previously, Dr. Bentley is once again doing her marathon walk from surgery to surgery for a charity selected from those submitted by staff. This year it is ‘Headway’ which supports those who have suffered brain trauma in North Derbyshire.
- In honour of it being Volunteers Week the practice thanked members of the PPG for giving their time to help RPC, not just by attending meetings but by helping at Covid clinics and elsewhere, the practice added that having spoken with other practices in Derbyshire, there were few that had continued to meet throughout the Covid pandemic as we had or had adapted to meeting via Teams so readily. The practice shared that they always appreciate hearing the group’s comments and feel it’s important to keep the dialogue open.
- The practice then shared the Slidedeck with the group. The first slide presented the DNA (Did Not Attend data) which showed missed appointments surgery by surgery. Though the trend had been downwards with April showing 4% DNA, it had peaked at 5.1% during May with no obvious reason for the upturn.
Appointment reminders by text message were now sent 7 days prior and the day prior to an appointment both having a link to cancel.
One member asked if patients who do not attend were contacted asking why. The practice answered saying that last year they surveyed four months of non-attendees and the biggest reason was that they had forgotten.
The practice acknowledged that not all patients had smart phones but receptionists, when making an appointment gave an appointment slip of paper with date and time on it. Some phones have a ‘push notification’ option to send a reminder of an upcoming appointment however digital deprivation shouldn’t be overlooked.
The practice shared that the national average for DNAs was 4.84% so RPC was not too far off. The practice have two policies for persistent non- attendees including one for children where safeguarding might be an issue. For others it would be three letters with the final one suggesting registration elsewhere.
- NHS England is having a big push on digital access, something RPC has been monitoring since November last year and there has been a big increase in patients registering for on-line services. There are now over 50% of the over 16 patient population registered which enables RPC to open up more on-line appointments. Monthly reminders are put out about RPC’s on-line channels; Airmid is the preferred platform for smartphones as it has a better user interface whereas SystmOnline, for computers and smartphones is no longer being updated by its developers TPP. When possible a choice of platforms should always be available.
- One member asked that the mention of on-line services be more prominent on the practice website as at present it was easily missed. The practice will look into the improvement suggestion and make changes where possible.
- The final slide referred to patient feedback based on the Family & Friends Test which requires certain questions to be asked with the results being fed back to NHS England. At RPC a new methodology was introduced in January with over 1,100 results received in the first month though it dropped to 138 during May. The practice suggest this to be a glitch in the system and are working to resolve this. The positive thing is that 95% of patients rate RPC as ‘good’ or ‘very good’ and 83% would ‘recommend to their family and friends’. Comments received are being shared on social media each week.
One member mentioned that he had not received the post-appointment text message and it was thought that if this was widespread it could be a reason for the drop-off in response. Practice aware and investigating.
PPG Matters
- The current PPG secretary is having to step down from the Secretary’s role after several years of doing an excellent job producing the minutes and nudging the Chair in the ribs on occasions a new Secretary is urgently needed.
The role is primarily one of producing the minutes either from written notes or from the recording of the meeting provided by the practice. Once a draft is typed it is first sent to David to look over and then to the practice to ensure it accurately reports practice news. A final version is then circulated to members, staff and on social media.
The chair said that although he is prepared to type the minutes temporarily, duties should be shared by PPG members and asks that someone steps forward to fill the role.
- On behalf of the PPG the practice has sent out text messages to Brooklyn patients to invite them to be part of the PPG. 30 expressions of interest were received. Each of those had been sent an email by the chair with the PPG leaflet attached and a follow-up phone call had resulted in a number of new members for the group; this is on-going so more may be expected. In time this initiative is likely to be extended to other surgeries within RPC.
- The group discussed dates and times of the meeting. Members will be asked the following three questions in order for a conclusion to be made on any changes to meeting dates and times:
Which is the most convenient week of the month for you to attend meetings?
Which is the most convenient day of the week for you to attend PPG meeting?
Which is the most convenient time for you to attend on that day?Members were asked when giving their reply to please take into account that the PPG must expand its membership if it is to fulfil its aim of being representative of the patient population and that our meetings should be equally accessible to all potential members. Meeting on-line has proved to be a great success as it eliminates unnecessary travel and ensures that staff members are able to join us from wherever they might be at the time.
- The PPG has a notice board at each surgery though the content at present is very out of date. Infection control needs to be considered and a covered, lockable notice board was thought preferable to having to laminate every document pinned up on nine notice boards.
The chair had found suitable lockable boards on-line from Wonderwall Products priced from £45.60 and felt these would be appropriate for a request to the CRH Charity for funding.The practice agreed that this was something that could be asked for. David said that if successful it fell to the PPG to keep the notice boards updated and the practice are happy to help us facilitating.
- The practice asked for feedback about whether use of slide decks that had introduced to share information with the group had been beneficial. The chair felt they were very helpful and asked for further feedback from members.
Questions for the Practice
- One member had reported being in the call queue and being cut off when the countdown had reached five minutes. This had also been mentioned to them by other patients and it was very annoying having to re-dial to start the process over. The practice asked that any examples of this happening be reported with the date, time and phone number so that it could be investigated by the phone service provider.
- Following a recent visit to The Grange one member mentioned that the check-in screen was out of action and this had caused a queue to form whilst the receptionist dealt with queries as well as checking patients in for appointments. The practice are working to get the screen fix but offered the Airmid app as an alternative to check n when getting close to the surgery.
- A member asked if there was scope for a samples to be left at reception so patients could drop in requested samples without having to queue. The practice shared that they check every sample to ensure that samples were sealed and correctly labelled to avoid samples going missing or not being tested, but that it would be considered.