PPG: Meeting Minutes 19th October 2022

Date: 19th October 2022
Time: 3:00pm via Teams
Attendees: Ingrid Babcock (IB) - PPG, Patricia Idusogie (PI) PM, Ashok Jadeja (AJ) - PPG, Adrienne Banks (AB), Christine Sherringham (CS), Dr George Zumbadze (GZ), Esther Meyerson (EM) Chair, John Rokos (JR), Gary Beard (GB), Sheila Connellan (SC), Sue Hunter (SH)

Agenda Items

Welcome & Apologies: (EM)

EM welcomed all to the meeting. Apologies were received from Sioux Thorn, John Hadley, Jud Barker, Mary Weaving, Victorine Martineau & Viv

Approval of Minutes of the last meeting (EM)

Last meeting minutes agreed. Can be published.

Practice Updates (GB, SC, ST & PI)

Matters arising from the last meeting:

Contract with Haringey Healthwatch
- EM asked if PI had heard from Haringey Healthwatch? PI stated that she had contacted Haringey Healthwatch, she received an email from Tanya Murat, which stated that Haringey Healthwatch is no longer funded for PPG support work (except for the PPG Network meetings) as a result she is not able to help with setting up an AGM with me. EM suggested that I try Eventbrite, to see if they can support, as they have supported Haringey Healthwatch wih some of their meetings. GB asked EM if she was a member of the PPG association. EM stated that she is not a member and there is a cost to join, GB said he would send EM the link for her to obtain more information.
CQC Inspection Update
- SC said that CQC is hoping to get the draft report to us in early November. SC stated that once the draft report is received, we usually respond within 24 to 48 hours with our feedback. SC explained that the inspector will need to put through his information, which will need to go before a panel. The interpretation of the panel could differ. SC stated that we usually wait for the final Inspection report before sharing. Once we have submitted our challenge to the draft report. The final report could take to 21 days or more for us to receive the final report.
Vaccinations (COVID Booster and Flu) update
- The Flu vaccines were finally delivered on the 3rd of October. To avoid the phones lines been consistently busy, we have decided to use accuRx to invite patients for the Flu vaccination. The text message includes a link which allows patients to book their own appointments. We have had a lot of patients booking their own appointments and the flu clinics have been busy.

Practice Report

As of November 1st, 2022, SGP will be open on Saturday from 9-1pm. This is extended access for our own patients. The appointments will be Telephone Consultation and face to face if the GP needs to see the patient face to face. The appointments on Saturday are routine appointments, whilst we see acute cases during the week.

The PCN extended access has appointments between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 9am to 5pm, and the HUB access are still available for practices to book patients into.

Staff

We have an apprentice who has joined us, the apprentice is doing her apprenticeship in Reception and Admin work. She is Turkish speaking, and we are happy to have her join our team and she will be a big asset to our team. We interviewed 4 staff for the receptionist position and 2 of the candidates will be joining the team.

We have the following staff vacancies advertised:

1 GP
1 Advance Practitioner
2 Practice Nurses
2 Receptionist

Phone Report

In September we were at 73% of calls answered and we were had 27% of abandoned calls. In October we were at 71.50% of answered calls. The group asked what constituted the abandoned calls. PI stated that some of the abandoned calls could be patient who may have come through the wrong option as we have 4 services who use our premises and they have their own options on the phone menu. It could be patients who have selected one off the options given.

EM asked about the recruitment of new PPG members; PI stated the staff who register patients are encouraging new patients to sign up. PI mentioned that she had added a message to the phone menu, so that while patients are waiting for their call to be answered, they will a short message about joining the PPG. The call waiting board also has an message encourage patients to join the PPG.

Social Prescribing Presentation About

CS explained what a Social Prescriber does. CS said her role is a new concept within the NHS. CS stated that her role is to listen to people more on a nonmedical thing and to find what’s important to the patient she is speaking with or to try to link them to agencies that might be able to help them. Her role allows her to understand that there a lot of things that impact on people’s health.

CS receives task or referrals from the clinicians, for patients need her support. The patients must be over 18 years old. CS shared some of the kind of task and referrals she receives to give everyone a better idea of what she handles:

Urgent Social Care-where the carer of a patient has had to go into hospital, so CS Chased up for another carer for our patient.
An Asylum seeker had no money and was prescribed medication he could not afford, she directed the patient to where they could get assistance.
Assisting someone who moves from one accommodation to another, this person had a long history of mental Health issues and was really struggling with the impact of the move and got into debt because of the increased cost.
Another patient who is disabled and lived on the third floor of a property and needed support as he couldn’t get out of the property, and he had family breakdown.

CS mentioned that the housing related issues are challenging, as she cannot do much about housing issues, all she can do is to engage people and see if there are other things that can be done. CS says she listens and tries to find the best agency where the patient can obtain support.

CS is also involved with the weekly Thursday walks and there have been good testimonies from some of the patients who participate in the weekly walks. SC asked CS when we will be able to see the benefit of the what CS does. GZ Stated that some of the patients that are referred to CS are discussed at the weekly clinical meeting. At these meetings we get up dates of each patient that CS has been sent a task to follow up.

Terms of Reference

EM thanked those who have been involved, the working party from the PPG who have been working on the document. EM said the team had done an amazing job. EM asked that everyone review the draft ToR, she asked for SC, ST & PI to review the document as it will be discussed at the next PPG meeting. EM stated that, what had change was the terminology, this has been used to distinguish between the PPG committee the 15 members who will form the AGM.

The PPG Board will be the 15 people plus members of SGP. SC stated that 15 people is not high enough a number. SC said there should be one or two persons per thousand of the list size of the practice. SC stated that the number should be in the mid 20’s. EM stated there should be 3 layers and she asked that everyone send their feedback to IB or PI.

SC mentioned that she was happy to see that the group had addressed the items that she had concerns about.

Any other business

EM informed the team that Haringey Healthwatch had informed her that ICS (Integrated Care Services) is trying to get feedback on people with long COVID. It is a single pathway. EM said it is more about the patient experience with long COVID, these patients may be referred to Occupational Health or Physio depending on what the issue is.

EM said there is pathway for persons with long COVID to be referred to UCH. EM provided Dan Whitlock’s name as a contact person should we have further questions.

Patient Access to their Medical Records

The question was asked if the access was to all a patient’s medical records. NHS England intends for patients to be able to view their electronic medical record online from Nov 1st, 2022. The records are what is on EMIS and this does not include paper notes. Access to medical records may be withheld for specific reasons that would not be in the patient’s own interest. There are very clear guidelines on this that practices must follow. For example, certain safeguarding matters or domestic violence cases. Patients may still apply to the practice to ask to see copies of their medical records.

Date of the Next Meeting

7th December 2022 @ 3pm via Teams.