Jan. 9, 2023

Minutes

Patient Participation Group Virtual Meeting

held on 09.01.2023 at 1pm

Present: Chair/Patient Group Lead - Rose Parry

HHC GP - Dr Philip Ridsdill Smith

HHC Practice Manager - Steph Ashdown

Patient Representatives - Sally Barr, Andrew Culshaw, Linda Donaldson, David Bonser,

& Elizabeth Tyler

(Minutes Secretary – Jane Walter)

Apologies: Jill Bowman & Dawn Thompson.

Welcome by Rose.

Minutes of Last Meeting were agreed.

Matters Arising – distribution of quarterly newsletters. Rose said the distribution of these newsletters was proving quite a challenge. Although HHC was texting these to patients with mobile phones, patients who did not have mobile phones or good mobile coverage were not being reached. The local churches had been very good in taking and distributing hard copies of the newsletters. The Fernhurst Hub and Haslewey had indicated they would be prepared to have some hard copies and she had given thought to including the newsletter in a parish magazine, which was delivered to most residents but the cost involved was too high. She felt present distribution arrangements were still the best way to reach patients.

Sally asked if it would be possible to email copies of the newsletter to patients thus making it easier to read the information. Steph confirmed the Practice did hold email addresses/mobile numbers for quite a high percentage (?70%) of patients and agreed this could be looked at. She said there was a laminated copy of the newsletter in the surgery and patients were able to request a hard copy from reception should they wish to take one away. She added hard copies were not put out in the waiting room as infection control had to be considered and this also applied to suggestions re pharmacies having hard copies available. However this did not apply to areas not in a health setting.

Andrew commented there continued to be a connectivity issue in reaching patients and on looking at HHC’s website it seemed old messages were not being deleted. He also suggested the web designers should be asked to format information so it was readable on mobile phones. He added a couple of messages had been put on HHC’s website recently from e.g. Surrey Heartlands, one of which was a response to National Statistics and the other he thought was headed Crisis. He felt patients would be more likely to respond to messages from the GP Partners or others whose names they were more familiar with. Steph said the website was managed by an offsite provider and it took a week/ten days for information to appear which meant the news might already be out of date when it was read. Rose said she would feedback to the next PPG Chairs Meeting.

Rose summarised the discussion by saying hard copies would continue to be given out as agreed and the take-up monitored. Andrew said he could take 50 copies and Rose thought she could distribute 20+ copies to the Library and other various Hubs. Steph agreed to look at the suggestion of having some copies printed in a larger format (folded A3) for distribution and would look at putting information on the Haslemere Community Board.

Practice Update. Not discussed as a separate item.

Clinical Network/Procare – West of Waverley (WoW) Update. Rose reported there was no further information re the Transport Project as no meeting took place in December.

Phil explained the role of the Primary Care Network (PCN) which locally encompassed the four Practices of HHC, Grayshott, Chiddingfold and Witley/Milford. He said every GP Practice in the country had to be part of a PCN but didn’t have a statutory function or organisation like a company, therefore although given government money didn’t have the ability to form a bank account. He said in this area an existing structure of a Federation was relied on to get round this. Therefore Procare as a Federation was the infrastructure behind the four PCNs of Guildford & Waverley.

Rose felt that these small PCN groups seemed to work well providing a more united front for GPs. Phil agreed that innovations and skills that were working in one group were able to be shared more easily.

Healthwatch Update. There was nothing to report.

LoF/RSCH/HHG update. Rose had participated under the League of Friends banner at the Charity Fair. It was Haslemere Hospital’s Centenary in 2023 and the LoF were doing quite a lot of work to celebrate this and to raise money for improving Outpatient space at the Hospital. She had been asked what the Health Hub was and explained it was trying to get extra space for patients needing the same day urgent appointments. In addition it could provide an excellent teaching and educational hub for a variety of different disciplines to deliver urgent care thus the ability to increase patient throughput. A local resident whom she met at the Charities Fair had asked if a new urgent care hub was being developed would it include blood tests and on the day X-ray facilities? He said although it might be inappropriate to go to A&E one always had blood tests and X-rays if required. Therefore it was time well spent rather than chase around the countryside to obtain diagnostics if required on another day.

Rose asked Phil if there was any further developments on the Hub. He said a business plan had been put together with a bid submitted to Waverley Borough Council (WBC) to improve the building and provide more space. Unfortunately WBC won’t make a decision until March/April and NHS Property Services won’t commit to how the building gets used and the Integrated Board were not committed currently to working through a project plan to move things forward on a timeline. It was frustrating not being able to move things forward at the moment but the enthusiasm for the project remained.

Rose was not sure whether the extended hours for Haslemere Minor Injuries over the winter period would remain after January with about 60 patients a day being treated. Both Sally and Andrew agreed the branding of this service (and others) needed clarification as it appeared the information could be about the RSCH A&E rather than Haslemere Minor Injuries. David agreed the NHS did not look at things from patients’ points of view and groups like the PPG should continue to try to keep patients’ views paramount.

Rose said the Haslemere Health Transformation Group (formed to extend and improve the Hospital) had met with commissioners and providers. There is interest in developing the hospital site but investment/funding is proving difficult. NHS Property Company do not appear particularly helpful in understanding or supporting their buildings being fit for purpose to support the development of local healthcare.

Andrew asked Phil how HHC was coping with the current situation and what were the red flags as far as the GPs were concerned. Phil said pressures were very high within the service at the moment and both within the Practice and Hospital settings, he felt there was certainly a risk of patient harm. He pointed to the unhelpful information that the media had put out about General Practice not responding to patient needs very well e.g. the recent Strep A scare and lack of antibiotics. GPs were well aware of vacancies within General Practice with numbers well down on 2-3 years ago with productivity down despite GPs working incredibly hard to maintain high quality of service which patients expected.

Any Other Business. As a result of the Hub project difficulties expressed above by Phil, Andrew said approaches had been received from the Retinal Screening Team and the Primary Care Mental Health Team for use of the Link’s present facilities. He said the proposed Link project had not received Lottery funding on this occasion but had been directed to approach the “Your Surrey Fund”, which might also be of interest to Phil. It was a £100m fund to be spent over a 5 year period on community facilities/buildings in Surrey and he would be looking at this for the Links project. He encouraged everyone to look at the website and register their interest.

Steph reported that at an in-house meeting that morning it had been decided to carry on wearing masks in the Practice and patients were going to be asked to bring their own as the cost of providing these was too great. She asked what the best form of messaging patients would be. Andrew suggested a short SMS to notify patients of this and other group members agreed.

Dates of Monday Meetings for 2023: 24 April, 3 July, 2 October and 11 December. All meetings start at 1pm.

The meeting closed at 2.05pm.