We would like to know how we can improve our service to you and how you perceive our surgery and staff. 

Our Patient Participation Group is a group made up of patients and staff that represent our practice population.  We meet quarterly, to ensure that patients are involved in decisions about the range and quality of the services we provide.  We want to seek the views of our patients, and ensure that patients are engaged with changes to the practice.  We can raise items and issues that initiate from our suggestion box.

If you would like to join our PPG, please ask for a form at Reception.  We would love to have you!

The group would like to contact patients on occasion by email and/or text so that they can obtain the views of the widest group of patients possible. We would like to obtain your email address and mobile phone number to do this. Please complete the Patient Contact Form to provide your consent for this.

Patient Participation Groups tend to be set up by Practices but, over time, they are usually run by patients. Typically they will have a committee that meets regularly to give the PPG some leadership and a sense of direction. The PPG should work closely with the Practice and it is normal for members of the Practice Team, including General Practitioners, to be part of the Patient Participation Group.

Patient Participation Groups are not set up to be a ‘forum for moaners’, nor are they ‘doctor fan clubs’. They are a route for patients to advise and inform the Practice on what matters most to patients and to help 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.

The activities of Patient Partnership Groups vary because they develop and evolve to meet local needs of their Practice Population. Activities may include:

• Improving communication by assisting in the production newsletters or leaflets for patients.
• Participate as appropriate in the organisation of health promotion events.
• Acting as a ‘critical friend’ to the Practice, helping it appreciate what patients are thinking and are saying about issues, such as
  opening hours, telephone systems, requests for home visits, delays in being taken for appointment, seeing their favourite clinician, repeat prescriptions, and the range and type of services provided within the Practice.
• Helping to fill some of the gaps in services by signposting patients to available support or providing services such as patient libraries, volunteer transport, befriending and support groups.
• Fundraising to support the work of the PPG and to improve the care that is available to patients of the Practice.
• Influencing the services that are provided, and where they are provided.
• Undertaking appropriate surveys or research to find out what matters to patients and discussing the findings with the Practice.