PPG Committee Meeting Minutes

Present

Flavia Leslie (FL), Chair, Babs Capps (BC), Wendy Price (WP), Mary Harrison (MH); Sam Buckley (SB); Kevin Fitzgerald (KF)

Practice Staff

Dr Helen Miles (HM); Kathryn Hall (KH) Practice Manager; Caroline Bodinham (CB)Assistant Practice Manager;

1. Apologies

None 

2. Minutes

Minutes of the last PPG committee meeting were approved

3. Matters Arising

There were no matters arising

4. Report from the Chair

• Flavia reported that she recently met with the other PPG chairs and Dr Alex Hart from a Didcot Primary Care Network perspective.  The funding for general practice for recruiting and retaining GPs has plummeted. New roles such as Physician’s Associates, Clinical Pharmacists and the use of physiotherapists and counsellors are being encouraged to reduce the pressure on GP appointment time.  However, these roles do require supervision from a GP and therefore the role of GPs is evolving to include more supervisory time for other members of the clinical team.  

5. Treasure’s Report

There has been no spending against the money allocated to the PPG since the last meeting. The total amount remains as £229.34. This money remains in the practice accounts to avoid incurring additional changes associated with maintaining a separate account. 

• Cheque Deposit 7 November 2022: £179.34
• Cash deposit 28 December 2022: £50

Total £229.34

6. Practice Update 

Staffing 

• We have recruited one other doctor, but only for 1½ sessions a week.   Dr Cunningham is a very experienced GP and is a GP trainer which is why her clinical time is quite limited.  
• Sadly, we have two doctors who are off sick at the moment and also one Doctor on maternity leave.   This is having an impact on practice capacity.  We have been able to get some locum cover but not sufficient to cover all the appointment sessions lost.  We also have a 4th Doctor who is recovering from surgery on his wrist and is working remotely but covering a lot of telephone appointments.  
• One of the biggest impacts when doctors are off is the amount of administrative work that needs covering including results reporting, prescriptions and general letters from hospital or other health professionals.  This has an impact on clinical time and staff morale.  
• We currently have a backlog of 150 patients waiting to be registered therefore the practice has invested in an artificial intelligence / robot solution to help with managing patient registrations more efficiently.  This has only been working for a week but we are very pleased with the results so far.  We plan to look at other options to help with admin burden such as the management of clinical correspondence for the doctors.  

Practice Premises

• Rooms 2 to 5 have had new desks installed to meet infection control standards.   

Estates and Estates strategy and Practice catchment boundary 

• KH - We are still pursuing the option of an extension to Woodlands and we are working with Oxford Health Foundation Trust on the possibility of selling some of the adjacent land.  However, this still needs formal agreement. This would be for an extension of 6 clinical rooms. Work on the GWP development remains slow but moving in the right direction.  A developer has been appointed and work on lease agreements and planning is ongoing.   

7. AGM Planning

• KH and LW to come up with a date in early July and explore availability of the large room in the Civic Hall
• A separate meeting is needed (virtual if required) to finalise the Agenda and perhaps with a short presentation by Healthwatch

8. PPG Membership Recruitment

• KF tendered his resignation as Secretary due to personal circumstances and the new Secretary will need to be chosen and elected at the AGM.
• There has been little interest in recruiting new members to the committee via the practice website.   It is felt that often the best way of recruiting members was by word-of-mouth personal recommendations.  We will plan to actively promote the opportunity to join the committee at the next AGM.

9. AOB 

There was no further business for discussion