July 3, 2023

Minutes

Patient Participation Group Virtual Meeting

held on 02.10.2023 at 1pm

Present: Chair/Patient Group Lead - Rose Parry;

HHC GP - Dr Philip Ridsdill Smith

HHC Practice Manager- Steph Ashdown

Patient Representatives - David Bonser, Linda Donaldson & Jill Bowman.

(Minutes Secretary – Jane Walter)

Apologies: Sally Barr, Andrew Culshaw, Elizabeth Tyler & Dawn Thompson.

Welcome by Rose.

Minutes of Last Meeting were agreed.

Matters Arising. No matters arising.

Practice Update (PRS & SA)

1.Space Issue at Haslemere Health Centre. Phil said that the Health Centre

needed more space for consulting rooms but the use of disused buildings (e.g. Cedar Bungalow) on the hospital site was not an option. They had been looking at moving some of the administrative staff into the hospital building (potentially the Outpatient Annexe) to free up space but progress was slow. Less likely an application for CIL or LoF funding would be made rather it was thought that NHS Property Services would be able to fund this.

2.Change in Pharmacy Hours. Originally pharmacy hours within the Health Centre were approved at 100 hours per week. New legislation for 100hrs pharmacies meant that pharmacy companies could now reduce their opening hours due to staffing and other cost pressures that they are facing. There was no consultation with others prior to this legislation being agreed.

Day Lewis pharmacy at HHC was now open 8.30am-9pm Mon to Fri; 1pm-9pm Sat and 10am-5pm Sun. Pharmacies are not allowed to change their 9pm closure or Sunday hours. Rose commented that with the current 100hrs of opening times the pharmacy couldn’t turn round scripts under four days – therefore, it would take longer for patients to obtain their medicines with less hours available. Pharmacies at Grayshott and Hindhead had also been having difficulty turning prescriptions around. Phil explained pharmacies do not get a set rate per prescription, the Government can pull back money retrospectively. This had meant a lot of pharmacies had been running at a deficit particularly after COVID. David felt changes in legislation were made with no consideration to patients. He asked whether there was any way in which patients could get their voices heard. Rose said she had raised this last week at the Primary Care Operational Group with the Head Pharmacist, Tim Dowdell and the local Medical Committee had also acknowledged it was very difficult for NHSE to gauge what impact decisions had on patients and would take this up and other numerous issues with the Department of Health. Jill said she would send David the link to Healthwatch as they had been gathering comments re pharmacy changes and difficulties patients were having getting their prescriptions. David further commented that the NHS were not listening to Groups like this one and was disappointed this was the case. Rose said the Group’s comments do go up to the local Alliance and higher and reporting of what was happening to patients locally did make a difference.

3.Phlebotomy Clinics. Phil said they had not had a good answer back from the Royal Surrey re these clinics at Haslemere Hospital. Patients had told him it was taking 3-4 weeks to get an appointment locally but had to travel further to Milford or the Royal Surrey for a sooner appointment. Unfortunately HHC did not have enough space to take this service back. Rose had raised this point with some of the RSCH Governors at an Open Day last Saturday. She had mentioned that days allocated to Haslemere included Mondays and Fridays, which were Bank Holidays and therefore not used for phlebotomy clinics and impacted on patients. The Governors said they would bring this up at their meeting. Jill invited David to write to Healthwatch about that as well.

Linda queried whether day surgery was in fact taking place in the room previously allocated to phlebotomy? Rose commented she thought RSCH’s rationale for cutting down on the phlebotomy service was a funding issue.

4.Dermatology Referrals (raised in an email from Andrew on behalf of an elderly relative who had been given an appointment at Cranleigh). Steph explained that when the secretaries made a dermatology referral they no longer had the option of choosing the Haslemere Clinic but rather referrals were sent to Ashford & St Peter’s where they were triaged and patients were given the next clinic date available. Referral letters did have “Haslemere please” typed on them but this was not always possible. Patients can ring to alter their appointment clinic but may not be aware of that and Steph suggested this information could be included in the next Newsletter. Rose said she had spoken to a dermatology clinician who came to Haslemere who said patients referred under the Two Week Rule would probably be seen at the clinic with availability - but for more routine appointments they would be sent either to Haslemere or Cranleigh. Rose added that she was having a meeting with the new Primary Care Manager, Miranda Harris and would raise this with her and Hannah. Jill felt it was a good idea to put this information in the Newsletter so patients would know they had the option to change their appointment clinic.

5.Telephony. Dawn had raised the issue of it taking quite a long time to get through on the telephone recently. Steph thought this was probably during the summer period when there were staff shortages because of holidays and sickness. Two new receptionists had been taken on recently and a call back option for patients to use would become available next week. She explained that if patients were in the queue but couldn’t wait to speak to a receptionist they could chose the call back option without losing their place in the queue. This information could also be included in the Newsletter.

6.COVID/Flu Vaccinations. Rose said this had been raised at the Patient Group as the information hadn’t been cascaded down to Surrey Heartlands speedily. The National Programme for COVID once known was published ASAP. Although many surgeries had set up large flu vaccination clinics at weekends, pharmacies had been offering COVID and flu vaccinations to patients which meant GP clinics had many DNAs. Steph agreed and said it had been a difficult situation as no-one had been appointed in this area to provide COVID vaccinations to those aged 65+ so GP clinics were losing out on providing flu vaccines as pharmacies could provide both. She added there had been over 80 DNAs last Saturday but the Health Centre had still provided about 1400 in total. It was not possible for the Health Centre to run COVID clinics at the same time as providing flu vaccinations. However, the Health Centre have been vaccinating all the housebound, nursing home residents, children 0-4 at high risk and age 65+ patients with specific criteria illness (totalling approx. 500 patients). Advice to patients had been to ring 111 or the booking enquiries line 119. David said he had hoped to find information about COVID vaccinations in the recent Newsletter but nothing was mentioned. He felt it would have been useful to have been told that the Health Centre did not have the information to give out at that time. Rose said at the time of the Autumn Newsletter they didn’t have the information to publish. Jill agreed with David that this would have taken the worry away. Steph added that pharmacies were somehow able to get both COVID and flu vaccines ahead of GP surgeries. Flu vaccines for 2024 had already been ordered by the Health Centre. Rose thought a message could be put up on the board that if patients had booked their flu vaccines elsewhere, they should be asked to cancel their surgery flu clinic appointment.

7.Appointment Touchscreen. Rose reported that recently the screen had been out of action with patients subsequently missing their appointments as queues at the desk to advise receptionists that they were present were lengthy. Steph said she would mention to the receptionists that if the patient was present but unable to book in, then their appointment should not be cancelled or rearranged.

8.New Health Centre Staff. Phil told the meeting that a new paramedic, Amy had started working in the Minor Ailments Clinic and may also be going out on visits and a new Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Fiona starting next week.

PCN – West of Waverley (WoW) Update.

Rose said that Seun had told Chairs that there was a new project My Care My Way. Steph said this had yet to be finalised but would replace the Proactive Care/Anticipatory Care Pathway. She didn’t have any further information for the moment but knew that Sharon Moorey, a Community Matron would be looking after My Care My Way.

Healthwatch Update.

Jill reported that there had been a meeting last week with different priorities for Healthwatch to focus on for the forthcoming year namely Social Care/Care Assessments and Women's Health, both areas where comments had been raised lately. Currently there was a project on Hospital Services’ involvement with people and the feedback. Jill and colleagues had been going to St Luke’s at RSCH and Frimley Park to talk to people about how to give feedback, good or bad, and what they felt the response should be. She mentioned that there used to be boards put up that said “You said, we did”, e.g. comments that parking at RSCH had always been dreadful with reply “Yes, we know and are trying to do something about it”. Access to Primary Care was also being looked at with volunteers going to various GP Practices to follow up on information.

Steph added that Health Centre patients with a GP appointment were being given the option to feedback anonymously and were seen as a WhatsApp or text. This was being monitored and the ones she had seen were 99% very positive. She thought this could also be included in the Newsletter.

LoF/RSCH/HHG update.

Rose reported the League of Friends wanted to make sure there was enough space for patients at Haslemere and if more space was found, they had pledged to support this and fund any equipment. Mixed messages had been coming out about rehabilitation as to what happened at Milford and what happened at Haslemere. Rose thought there was more acute treatment offered at Milford but more rehabilitation for patients at Haslemere. The LoF had been facilitating more rehab equipment for Haslemere in the in-patient wards.

RSCH - Rose said there had been a lot of feedback about discharge summaries. Apparently there were 97 patient discharge templates at the Royal Surrey and these were to be merged down to 6 to provide better information to Practices.

Dates of Monday Meeting for 2023: 11 December. All meetings start at 1pm.

The meeting closed at 2pm.