The Emsworth Surgery Patient Participation Group was set up in October 2009 with the intention of creating a connection between the Practice and its patients allowing open, constructive discussion and analysis of the services provided. It also offers an opportunity to give an alternative perspective on many topics that are relevant to General Practice.
The group allows interested patients to influence and be involved in the running of the Practice. Benefits include the suggestion and introduction of new services and improvements in the way the Practice delivers its care. The group currently consists of 9 members and the Chairman is Tony Harris. Meetings are held monthly at the Emsworth Surgery with the exception of July, August and December. The Practice Manager, Kate Hope, sits on the group and the group has input from Dr Philippa Newman who is the Practice representative for the PPG. The PPG is very committed to discussing items such as feedback from patients, bringing patients’ concerns to the group’s attention, including those concerns where patients may be reluctant to raise their voice, also to raise new issues or grumbles and to communicate praise whenever it is given. All of this and more can only help patients to have involvement in the surgery’s future development and improve, what is already, a highly thought of Practice.
The PPG have provided a new notice board at Emsworth Surgery specifically to give patients and the wider community information about various organisations that are around the town which help in a variety of situations. This notice board is now in situ in the window to the right of the surgery door. We hope this will be useful to everyone.
As with most voluntary groups, the group has to be self funded. The group has some ideas but we realize that amongst all of the patients there must be many more who could throw in some helpful fund raising methods. Please send suggestions or ideas of any kind in to the Practice Manager, Kate Hope, and they will be forwarded onto the group. Alternatively you can use the suggestions box at the reception desk at Emsworth Surgery.
It must be noted that the PPG is not a method to communicate complaints, this must be done via the Practice’s Complaints Procedure. |