Patient Participation Group

What is a Patient Participation Group?

At its simplest, patient participation groups offer a collaborative space to patients who wish to take a more active interest in developing local healthcare services. The idea is for patients and staff to work together to share ideas to help patients to take more responsibility for their own health and to help improve the services offered at the Practice.

• We gather patient feedback.
• We review patient surveys.
• We explore ideas and suggestions on how to improve patient experience in our PCN/GP practice.
• We discuss with PCN/GP Practice staff and agree on an action plan for service improvements.
• We monitor implementation of service improvement suggestions.

We run small projects that benefit all practice patients such as health promotion campaigns, patient education & improvement to practice environment.

Where do we meet and how often?

Your practice will try their best to schedule meetings as a mix of both face to face at the practice and virtually online so that patients can attend in a manner that suits their schedules best.

Meetings vary in frequency throughout the year, with a minimum expectation of a meeting taking place at least once every 6 months.

Communications regarding the dates and times of meetings will be circulated well in advance so that members have enough notice to attend. There is no obligation to members to attend every meeting, we understand people are busy and we welcome as much participation as you can give whenever you can give it.

Who attends the meeting?

We want to encourage attendance from all our patients and welcome participation from all groups to ensure as many voices are heard as possible. If you are a carer or guardian of a registered patient, you are also able to join and feedback on their behalf.

The meetings will usually be chaired by a senior member of staff from the Practice, such as the Practice Manager. Other staff members may include our reception team, GP Partners, GPs, Nurses and other healthcare professionals working within our Practice or Primary Care Network.

Depending on the topic of discussion other staff and/or representatives from elsewhere in Hillingdon may also be involved through invite only.

What happens at the meeting?

A PPG meeting agenda may look like this:

1. Welcome and introductions
2. Updates from PCN/GP Practice staff
3. Patients’ feedback, suggestions and comments
4. Small project ideas and updates
5. Agreed action plan
6. Date of the next meeting

The meeting usually lasts about 1 to 1.5 hours.

What the PPG is NOT about

A PPG meeting is not a forum to raise individual complaints.

A PPG meeting is not a forum to seek medical advice.

Your practice will not deal with personal medical issues or individual patient complaints as there is already a well-established procedure to deal with these.

How will I get feedback from the PPG?

Minutes from the PPG meetings will be circulated to all members after the meeting so you have a record of what was discussed and agreed.

Confidentiality

Your details will not be shared with anyone beyond this PCN/GP practice.

To find out more about signing up to a PPG group please visit your practice website.