Minutes of the previous meetings were approved
Practice Update
- The practice introduced their new Head of Operations Nate Webber who has joined the practice and will be working closely with the Managing Director and Practice Operations Manager to aid the day to day running of the non-clinical side, covering all nine sites. Nate will also be heavily involved with the PPG going forward and we look forward to working with him.
- The practice are trying to encourage patients to get signed up for online services, they are monitoring uptake and will make more appointments available online when the online access starts to increase. This will help with the high volume of telephone calls that the practice are still experiencing between 8.00 and 10.30am. Other options were still being considered to help alleviate the pressure including bank staff.
- Drop-in blood test clinics have been re-started at the Clay Cross and Rectory Road surgeries, and the practice has received some positive feed-back regarding these. They are also looking at other skill sets to see what else could become drop-in clinics to make appointments more accessible for patients.
- Four new Practice Nurses, one Nurse Practitioner and a new GP have joined the practice in the last month. The practice will continue to work on their recruitment drive to hopefully expand the clinical team where there are vacancies.
- One member asked if there was any intention to close the Whittington surgery as there never appeared to be enough appointments available. The practice reassured us that there is no intention to close the Whittington surgery and that it was hoped to offer more appointments as soon as more GPs have been recruited.
- The refurbishment of Rectory Road surgery was nearing completion, it will increase the top floor to five clinical rooms and these will be filled with the nursing team. This will allow GPs, Nurse Practitioners, and the Trainee Team to expand out on the ground floor. A site inspection is to take place on Monday 20th February to ensure that the work has been carried out to RPC standards. This expansion was a big positive for the practice in response to all the new builds around the Staveley area.
- One member raised that they had experienced an issue when trying to send his blood pressure readings in via the website, they received a message saying ‘404, page does not exist.’ The practice apologised to the member and said that the page had recently been updated and the problem had now been resolved.
- The practice team are working on a healthy eating Cookbook for patients. Royal Primary Care are very passionate about a more holistic approach to health care. The practice have asked staff for low-cost, healthy recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinners and have extended the offer to the PPG to ask if any of our members had any meal ideas to contribute.
- The practice shared that they are working on a ‘Meet & Greet’ service to try and shorten the morning queues at the surgeries. It will be based on the system used by banks when they have queues and is intended to help waiting patients who have struggled to get through on the phone to access services more easily by helping them to register for on-line services to book their own appointments and show them the benefits of using internet access and phone apps. The hope is that it would reduce phone calls and footfall at front desks whilst helping people get what they wanted quicker. It was not intended to stop people talking to the receptionist if they really needed to. In answer to a question from a member about privacy, the practice replied that a private area/room would be available if needed.
PPG Matters
- One member asked if information, including the minutes of our meetings be put on a notice board designated for PPG matters. The practice replied that all information had been removed during the Covid pandemic due to infection prevention measures that were put in place, but we will look to reinstate the posters and update the PPG boards with more up-to-date information. One member asked if magazines could, once again, be re-introduced in the surgeries as they had been at The Royal hospital. The practice will look into this and get back to the PPG.
- A member of the group had said that they had noticed a Royal College of General Practitioners accredited ‘Armed Forces Veterans Friendly’ logo on another practice’s web site and asked if RPC had accreditation, the practice confirmed that this is something they don’t have in place but would look into as they feel this could be beneficial for them.