Summer PPG Outcomes Posted on 11 Jul 2023

In mid-June we had our summer meeting of the Patient Participation Group. It was a warm sunny evening so we were able to sit outside and I was very pleased to see both familiar and new faces in attendance.

The first item we discussed was the reception area. The attendees had some great ideas about how we could improve reception. We discussed the surgery’s plan to develop the reception area as a health and wellbeing hub.

The second item we discussed was issues with pharmacies. Attendees agreed that they would explore the feedback options at their own pharmacies.

The third item was our appointment booking system. Attendees had positive feedback about our ‘on the day’ booking policy and our use of reminder text messages for appointments. We acknowledged that navigating our website and Online Consult form can be challenging for some patients. At NIMP, we are currently undertaking a project to improve our website, so this feedback was really helpful.

The fourth item was the extended access service. We discussed what is working well and what could use improvement and attendees gave some feedback which will be dispersed to the surgery staff.

Finally, the fifth item we discussed was the surgery staff. There have been several new members of staff employed in 2023 in both the admin and clinical team. We discussed the fact that NIMP is in the process of developing a Multi-Disciplinary Team. It was great to hear from attendees that the staff are friendly and polite.

Many thanks to all the attendees. We are hoping to hold our next PPG meeting around September and look forward to seeing you then.