1.WELCOME & APOLOGIES
PRESENT
Patients: Gill Walt (Chair), Judy Hildebrand, Mannor Wong, Eddie Malfiggiani, Gordon Meen, Kirsten de Keyser, Judy Sands, Susan Hutton, Isky Gordon;
Practice: Loni Booker, Phil Posner
APOLOGIES
Robert Graham-Harrison, Kathy Graham-Harrison, Donatella Soldi, Veronica Brinton, Dilini Kalupahana, Mimi Colahan
It was announced that Loni Booker was leaving the Practice after 4 years as Practice Manager. She was warmly thanked for her inputs to the PPG and her support to the group.
2. MINUTES FROM 28th February 2019 & MATTERS ARISING
Minutes from 28 February were agreed. No corrections or comments were made. No matters arose from the minutes which were not covered in the agenda.
3. FEEDBACK FROM CPPEG
Gill Walt presented the feed-back.
- NHS Long term plan: some of the effects on GP practice included:
- The big push to develop models that would keep patients out of hospital. This will be achieved by moving more services into the community in the long term.
- Integrating health and social services. This has been the work of the JW practice for years. However it was noted that the reduction in funding makes this difficult to achieve.
- Push for prevention. e.g. diabetes, obesity
- Procedures of Limited Clinical Effectiveness.
- This is a rationing of procedures available to patients, mainly directed at ‘cosmetic’ procedures. The CCG has produced an e-list of such procedures, and is reviewing the list. A patient concern that this included procedures like cataract or hip surgery was disputed. The PPG was informed that these rumours were incorrect.
- Some patients reported difficulties with the appointment system in adjacent hospitals. It was agreed that patients would be asked to report poor experience of hospital appointments to the chair of the PPG. These reports would need to contain the patient’s name, address, hospital number, date and time of appointment and when they received notice of cancellation.
4. WORKING THE QUEUE
The report had been circulated with the agenda, and is available on the website. Some of the recommendations in the report have already been implemented and others are in the pipeline.
There was discussion about the pharmacist collecting prescriptions from the JW to take back to the pharmacy. The PPG was told of a new computer programme that allows electronic transfer of all prescriptions (including controlled drugs) directly to pharmacy, which is about to be implemented. This will be a safer and more secure way of getting prescriptions to pharmacies, and will save everyone time.
5. PPG ANNUAL REPORT
The report had been circulated with the agenda and there were copies around the table. It is also be available on the website.
6. GARDEN PROJECT
The Kentish Town Improvement Fund would look positively on a proposal for a PPG project to maintain the garden outside the reception area – something which Free-Space have, in the past, organized. It was agreed that it could be an excellent PPG project, and we should look for volunteers.
Action – Kirsten will find who to contact in Transition Kentish Town, to see if we could collaborate with them. Also Mimi will send an email to the PPG list, asking whether anyone is interested to volunteer. Gill will ask for a similar email to be circulated to the Resident’s Association around the Kentish Town Health Centre (BARA) .
7. PRACTICE FEEDBACK
- New GP contract from April 2019. Need now to scale up work by linking practices. The James Wigg Practice will become one ‘primary care network’ together with Queen’s Crescent and Prince of Wales practices. Each PCN will sover between 30,000 to 50,000 patients. This will allow new services to be provided, some of which are already in place.
- In year 1 – funding for a full time pharmacist and a social prescriber.
- Year 2 – funding for a full time physician associate.
- Year 3 – funding for a full time para-medic.
- Visit of 30 Egyptian physicians to the JW practice, funded by the World Bank. Following the first visit, last week, this is ongoing for one year on 2 day/month basis. The main is to explore models of primary care for Egypt. A PPG representative met the group and talked to the physicians about the role of the PPG and the importance of involving patients in the Practice.
- Such visits bring advantages for JW practice in term of profile and education – for example, in the past there have been visits from several Chinese delegations. JW hope to continue promoting these visits.
8. PLANNING FOR ANNUAL ‘MEET YOUR PRACTICE’
The next PPG meeting is a more social event, between 6 – 7.30, on Thursday July 11th.
Discussion about how to encourage patients to come led to a number of suggestions: eg, to involve Freespace, and some of their groups; volunteers to provide invitations (small leaflets) to patients in the queue; to invite the PPG from Queens Crescent. A small working group will be formed to come up with a plan. It was thought that getting a few of the staff to talk about their roles would be helpful, especially if one of the GPs could open the session by talking about the changes in GP practice, and how there are many different health professionals involved in primary care. Then a few staff members could talk about their particular inputs. Examples given included Freddie, as a paramedic; Salone as a diabetes nurse; Nancy as a pharmacist, Siobhan as new Practice Manager.
9. AOB
A patient had written to the PPG regarding the machines for self-registration not working properly. This appears to apply mostly to the machine nearest the queue. A volunteer will try to log the details when this happens, and feedback to practice manager.
NEXT MEETING: Thursday 11 July, 6 – 7.30
