We are always happy to hear from patients to know how we can improve our service to you and how you perceive our surgery and staff. To help us with this, we are delighted to have established a Patient Participation Group (PPG). For more information please e-mail riverviewpark@nhs.net.
Our PPG has not been active since Covid but we are in the process of inviting new members.
What is the role of the Patient Participation Group?
The patient participation group consists of patients who wish to be involved in the local practice whilst taking an active role in developing local health services.
The purpose of the group is to facilitate patients and the practice staff working together to share ideas to help improve the services offered at the practice in addition to sourcing out any local community services that would help enhance aspects of the patient's lives.
The group will also have the responsibility of helping patients to take more responsibility for their own health, the group also offers an avenue for patients to have a say in how services are planned, developed and evaluated to foster a good working relationship with the practice staff and GP's.
What does a Patient Participation Group do?
- Help improve on the experience of attending the surgery
- Help the practice decide on overall service priorities
- Helps bring the attention of practice staff, the practice perspective of the level and standard of the services provided
- Acts as a channel is communicating to patients
- How changes in the NHS will affect service provision
- Information on the help available, support groups and networks
- Helps patients understand more about the medical conditions/problems
- Helps improve patients overall experience of the practice
Why set up a PPG?
Research tells us that effective engagement with patients;
- Improves quality of care and patient satisfaction
- Encourages patients as proactive partners rather than passive recipients of care
- Improves concordance with treatment
- Improves health outcomes
- Informs effective targeting of resources, saving time and money
- Is rewarding for professionals and improves relationships.
Who are the members of the Patient Participation Group?
The group will comprise of;
- Chair Person
- Secretary
- Treasurer (if fundraising is involved)
- Carer (s)
- Group members (patients from across the surgery representing the practice population)
- GP
- Managers
- Nurse
What the Patient Participation Group is not about?
The group will not deal with personal medical issues of individual patient complaints as there is already an existing procedure to handle such matters.
What can all patients do to help the Patient Participation Group?
The patient participation group's effectiveness is engineering the mutual working together of both patients and the practice staff to achieve a common goal in the provision of the best possible service.
To achieve this end will require patients communicating with the group and practice staff as a whole
Joining and registering with the PPG
We aim to gather patients from as broad a spectrum as possible to get a truly representative sample. We need young people, workers, retirees, people with long-term conditions and people from non-British Ethnic groups.