Cranleigh Medical Practice are recruiting to restart their PPG (Patient Participation Group). If you would like to be considered by them to join the group please go to the medical centre and collect an application form, by the end of June.
Doctors have Patient Participation Groups (PPG) to help them understand how they are helping us and how they can improve.
They also want us to learn how to help ourselves and each other.Â
Cranleigh Medical Practice Patient Participation Group – PPG – is coming back!
When we experience ill-health and need medical help…
Who can we tell? How can services be understood, reported, improved and celebrated?
Doctors at GP surgeries, hospitals and outpatients, home nursing and care, minor injuries, urgent care, accident and emergency, 111, pharmacy – getting the right answers can be difficult and telling our stories can really help us in many ways. Major changes and upsets throughout the Covid era have left us all with stories to tell about our ill-health needs, and how they have been met. Going forwards we want to rely on the services and to get it right when we contact them.
The fact that they don’t currently have a PPG is interesting and not quite right. A recent visit to another GP Practice revealed that ‘All patients registered at the practice are automatically members of the Patient participation Group’. A notice was pinned up in the surgery for all to view. (Source – The Heron GP Practice Herne Bay, Kent) Some practices have a working group and also on-line meetings for anyone who is a patient on the register.
What is a PPG and what can they achieve?
A Patient Participation Group (PPG) is a group of patients, carers and GP practice staff who meet to discuss practice issues and patient experiences to help improve the service. Since April 2015, it has been a contractual requirement of NHS England for all GP practices to have a PPG and to make reasonable efforts for this to be representative of the practice population.
Purpose
The purpose of the Patient Participation Group (PPG) is to ensure that patients and carers are involved in decisions about the range, shape and quality of services provided by their Practice. The requirement aims to promote the proactive and innovative involvement of patients and carers through the use of effective PPGs and to act on a range of sources of patient and carer feedback in order to improve the services delivered by the Practice.
The role of the PPG includes:
- being a critical friend to the Practice
- advising the Practice on the patient perspective and providing insight into the responsiveness and quality of services
- encouraging patients to take greater responsibility for their own and their family’s health
- carrying out research into the views of those who use the Practice
- organising health promotion events and improving health literacy
- ongoing communication with the patient population
The previous long-term members were let go during the pandemic and informed that they would be replaced in due course. The former members, of a wide age range, included young parents, retired nurses, members of other local representative bodies, including the Hospital League of Friends, Lions Club and other respected members of the community. Perhaps a fresh approach, more diverse, is required.
It is also common practice for PPG’s to be affiliated to the National Association for Patient Participation.
If you feel you’d like to be part, please obtain an application form from the GP Practice reception desk. Hurry though, it closes at the end of June!
Trevor Dale
Chair, Cranleigh Civic Society
