Q   What is a Patient Participation Group ?
A   This is a group of volunteer patients who are involved in making sure the surgery provides the services its patients need.  Groups are not set up to be a “forum for moaners” but nor are they “doctors’ fan clubs”. They are a route for patients to advise the practice on what matters most to patients and to identify solutions to problems. Members of PPGs should think about the wider patient interest and not just their own personal concerns when serving on the PPG.  Members of the group should act as a “critical friend” to the practice, helping it to understand what patients think about some of the issues such as opening hours, telephone systems, quality and convenience of access available services, patient experience of and so on to influence the services that we provide.  To some people this will seem rather daunting. But rest assured that PRGs across the country are doing these things and making a real difference.  Choose the level of involvement that suits you best, whether as a discussion forum member or by answering questionairres. It is all voluntary and every contribution is valued.

We Aim To: 

• Ensure that patients are involved in decisions about the range and quality of services provided by routinely asking for (and acting on) the views of their patients and we want our patients to be involved in decisions that lead to changes to the services.
  
• Recruit Patients (representative of the whole range of our practice population) to a face to face/online/email community that are consulted on a regular basis who are willing to give us their views and opinions on a regular basis.
  
• Establish a Discussion Forum accessible from the Practice website created to allow members to register and to post comments and responses.
  
• Consult with and gain agreement from the group prior to making significant change to the services we provide.
  
• Work with our PPG to identify areas for improvement and agree our priority areas for change.
  
• Work with the PPG to develop an ‘improvement action plan’.
  
• Carry out a properly constituted annual local survey of a sample of the practice’s patients looking at a broad range of areas and inform Patients of vPRG and local survey findings
  
• Publish the views of patients on our website.
  

Q   Why are you asking people for their contact details ?
A   We would like to be able to contact people occasionally to ask them questions about the surgery and how well we are doing to identify areas for improvement?

Q   How can I get involved?
A   Ask our friendly Reception Staff who will assist you with this.  You can play any role you desire in trying to serve your community Practice.  We would occasionally get in touch either by email or by post to complete a short survey annually to see how far we have come.

Q   How often will you contact me ?
A   We would only contact you of remidning you of the next PPG meeting or when we would need your support to help us imrpove the service.

Q    Will my doctor see this information ?
A   This information is purely to contact patients to ask them questions about the surgery, how well we are doing and ensure changes that are being made are patient focussed.  If your doctor is responsible for making some of the changes in the surgery they might see general feedback from patients.

Q   Will the questions you ask me be medical or personal ?
A   We will only ask general questions about the practice, such as short questionnaires.

Q   Who else will be able to access my contact details ?
A    Your contact details will be kept safely and securely and will only be used for this purpose and will not be shared with anyone else.

Q   Do I have to leave my contact details ?
A   No, but if you change your mind, please let us know.

Q   What if I no longer wish to be on the contact list or I leave the surgery ?
A   We will ask you to let us know by email if you do not wish to receive further messages