19/02/2025
For your information, the last agreed minutes of the PPG public meeting held on 3.12.24.
Tells you lots of important information!!
Also 2 dates for your diary:
Thursday 20th February at Shaw Lifelong learning centre. Cancer Awareness 1pm - 3pm. There will be stalls, information on Cancer and refreshments.
PPG Annual General Meeting Monday 24th March at 5.30pm at the Practice.
People have found this event so useful to meet staff from the Practice and find out vital information, plus sharing concerns and praise.
Public PPG meeting 3.12.24 5pm at Oak Gables Medical Centre
1. Welcome and introductions
2. Present Martine Sinker ( Chair) Mike Dodd (Vice chair) Moira Auchterlonie, Debra Reynolds, (Practice Manager) Suzanne Russell, (Digital Transformation Lead) Alyson Banham (Assistant Practice Manager) , Neil Sinker
3. Apologies Alan Marland John Starkey Peter Hatton
4. Minutes/Notes of the last meeting agreed and accepted as a true record. (Minutes handed to patients present for information).
Summary of the last meeting.
We have a public meeting twice a year - the AGM in March and one is normally November/ December. These are to air any concerns you have and find out more information. It’s an opportunity for us to be together.
We intersperse that with bi -monthly private PPG only meetings.This is followed by bimonthly joint PPG meetings with Practice staff.
Our last meeting was a joint meeting. We discussed
- Access.
- The PPG noticeboard.
- The agenda of tonight’s meeting.
- The results of the survey that we did at the flu clinic.
- We also looked at upcoming events and the official opening of the new centre.
- We spoke about Dr Shankar‘s funeral
- Cancer and digital awareness workshops which Suzanne is trying to set up
5. Update from the Practice
* A. The biggest update for this year is the death of Dr Shankar. That absolutely is floored the Practice because it was so unexpected and something that they never thought they’d have to deal with it as a practice - the death of a doctor in Service.
* The move to the new building.
Everyone agreed it’s much much better.
* B. The new Centre has a lot of new technology
* The Practice now are responsible for all maintenance- down to fixing the toilet!- and are responsible for cleaning the building which they didn’t have to do before. Heating is through overhead vents.
* No official opening until spring 25
* The Practice has just employed three new receptionists which is good and means that they can have the first floor manned as well. There will be someone on the bottom floor, someone on the first floor and staff upstairs manning the phones.
* There has been improvement in the phone call back. It works if you press the option to have a call back so hopefully that will be good for patients.
* They are going to introduce in the New Year -which Suzanne is kindly leading- artificial intelligence to help patients on the phones. It’s a choice, so if you want to use the avatar, it is going to be called after Dr Shankar. If you need it to help you it will. If you just want some information you can use it for that, or if people just ring to request a service, it will point you in the right direction. The choices will be limited in respect of what it can be asked. Hopefully that will help people who do want to wait on the phones. It’s another choice, nothing will be forced upon patients and staff will still be answering the phones. The Practice has had to supply a lot of information in order to set it up, for example things that you can self refer to.
* A member of the public said most people just want to speak to somebody. It is envisaged that it will be most useful at those times when the Practice is closed as well. The idea is that it’s just an additional option. For example, if you remembered you want to ask a question or something on a Saturday afternoon. It may also be on the website where a touchscreen allows you to pick an option.
6. Feedback on the survey at the flu clinic 5.10.24
Results were distributed to those present. On the 5th of October the PPG did an informal survey. We asked three questions;
1. Which one question would you like to ask?
2. What do you think of the new centre?
3. How do you book your appointments and as a sub question: Do you use the NHS app?
Martine Sinker collated the results and the results were shown on page 2 onwards Some people just said they liked the new centre and made no further comment. Where there was a comment, we tried to record it so you can see the kind of comments.
We pulled the survey together by summarising the three main concerns people had.
1. How can you make it easier to make an appointment?
2. What services are available at the practice?
3. Questions about the centre: signage, privacy and signing forms
4. 5. You said we did
You said :
How can you make it easy to make it appointment?
We did: The new phone system. From 8am till 1030am the phones are dedicated to appointments only every day. After that you can call about any queries. If you’re in a queue you have the option of a ring back. An important message to get through to people is to try not to ring between eight and 1030 unless it’s urgent. This is about saving patients’ time as well.
At 8 o’clock the morning of this meeting, for example, there were 20 in the phone queue. Most were just ringing up about something that they could ask later in the day from 10.30am. The phones are open for everything else but then we don’t want everybody to phone at 10:30am! They can ring in the afternoon.
Patients can also email the practice and the address is on the website. Patients can use the NHS app to make non urgent appointments. Quite a lot of people do use the app to make non-urgent appointments, but these are telephone only appointments.
If you make them on the app, people said when they got the text messages about telephone appointments, often it wasn’t right.
Plus all of the appointments that are available on the website have to be non-triage. The Practice staff said some bizarre appointments have been made on those books! The Practice staff then triage them to make sure that they going to the right people for the right thing. They have had some things up on there that have been urgent and people haven’t realised they’ve been urgent. In that case they’ve been brought forward as a face-to-face. They say book it anyway and if you want it as a face-to-face then between then and your appointment let us know and we’ll change it to a face-to-face.
* You said ; A number of patients said they would like to use the app but they’re not sure how to use it.
* We did; Last year we put on digital workshop at Shaw and Crompton library. 34 people came and there were enough people there from the NHS to give everybody a one-to-one. They were literally shown on the phone how to use it. We will work with Suzanne to arrange another one as there does seem to be the need. There is also a banner in Reception that gives the QR code. Debra will be able to help as well.
* You said:you wanted appointments to be available evenings and weekends.
* You said; they are available at Royton Medical Centre and people are availing themselves of that
Currently the appointment wait time is two weeks which is a little bit more than national. If you want to see a particular Doctor Oak, it may be a bit longer.
You said;
Can people still register with the practice?
We did; Currently the list is closed. The Practice can provide 54 sessions with 8 doctors Exceptions are attached care home Burnham and new born.
7. Services
- District nurses can’t be accommodated at the Practice. Appointments can made through a hub at Royton and Crompton Phlebotomy.
- Eye clinics only for diabetic retinopathy
- Clinics are run here but not coordinated by this surgery.
- Flu clinics are provided and the practice apologised for the long wait times on 5th October. This was due to staff absence and the sad death of Dr Shankar.
- R S V vaccines: There are a few appointments left. There will be 2 days of vaccinations. Vaccines cost £150 each. By invitation up to age 80. And for between 75 and 79 by request.
You said:
Privacy is required for booking Dr consultations.
We did:A receptionist on floor one will enable patients to make appointments when they come out of a consultation on the first floor. You can request privacy and will be taken to a quiet place.
There will be 4 receptionists - an addition of 2.
A number of patients present drew attention to the fact they can hear conversations in room 14 in the waiting room.
Some patients found the television too loud.
Those patients present gave official thanks for the hard work of all the Practice staff through the exceptionally difficult period of the last few months.
The meeting ended at 6pm prompt.
9.The next PPG meeting will be in February TBA and the Public AGM will be Monday March 24th at 5.30pm
