Phone: 01790 728111
The Surgery Bull Yard, Simpson Street Spilsby, PE23 5LG
Minutes of the Meeting of the Spilsby Surgery Patient Participation Group

Wednesday 9 September 2015 at 7 pm

The Grange, Ashby Road

Present: Dorothy Dobson (Chair), Stephanie Wroe, Ken Wroe, Julie Rajput, Christina Holmes, Enid Bailey, Jason Longstaff
Apologies:  Suzie Sheldon
Absent:   Sian Lovett

1. The minutes of the meeting from 8 July 2015 were agreed subject to the following amendment:
Ken’s attendance to be added.

2. Matters Arising        

Chemotherapy Bus
Dorothy had reported that there had been discussion around this at today’s CCG meeting; allegedly the bus had not been to Skegness yet because ULHT were not sure where they were going to park it.  Furthermore it was being used at Lincoln Hospital as a chemo suite.  At the meeting Dorothy said that David Baldy had proposed to take it further and escalate it and she assured that group that this PPG would be monitoring this situation and would support any attempt to try and get this resolved for the benefit of patients of our rural district.  This meeting agreed that there seemed to be conflicting statements coming out of ULHT around the use/non-use of this facility and that ULHT were more than happy to use this facility for marketing purposes (recent newsletter seen at Pilgrim).  It was agreed that the facility was supposed to be mobile, for the benefit of rural patients to save them having to drive all the way to Lincoln for treatment.  Jeanette proposed to make an FOI request to ULHT for more accurate information.  Action: Jeanette.

Hand Gel – Surgery
Jason reported that all the snagging following the recent building works had been done and the hand gel and clock would be going back on the wall next week.

NAPP
The Surgery had agreed to pay for the PPG’s subscription to NAPP.  The meeting thanked the surgery for this and said they felt it would be a helpful resource for future patient engagement and direction.

Facebook Page
Jason reported that the Surgery already had a Facebook page.  It was agreed that it was unfortunate that some patients felt it was easy to post unsavoury comments about the surgery without taking that up with the surgery directly.  During this item it was also noted that despite being sent the minutes and other articles, there had been no communication from any virtual members.

Text Messaging Service
Jason reported that the Surgery already had a text messaging service and despite the funding being pulled for this from the end of September 2015, Gary James had found the money to allow this to continue to be run.  Jason had sent a letter on behalf of the Practice Managers group to say thank you for this.

Surgery/Reception Waiting Areas
Jason reported that he was in the process of arranging background music for the waiting room and he was also looking at queuing/waiting areas in reception.  Ken and Steph reported a drip/leak onto the floor in reception when there were there the other day which the receptionist had to mop up with paper towels.  Jason said he would look into this and also that the floor was supposed to be non-slip.

AGM
It was agreed that the next AGM would be held on 21 October 2015 and given the poor attendance last year it was agreed that it should be held at the Surgery.  Enid gave her apologies.  Jeanette would send the notification leaflet to Jason, Chris and The Grapevine.  In terms of the constitution Jeanette, Dorothy and Chris resigned but offered to re-stand again at the AGM.  There had been interest from patient Maureen Jarvis in joining, who Dorothy had been trying to get hold of.  This nomination would be put forward at the AGM.  Dorothy would speak to Maureen about attending the AGM.  Jason would advertise the AGM on their Facebook page.  Jeanette would prepared the secretary’s report and Dorothy – the Chair’s remarks.  Jason would speak to Dr O’Kelly for a surgery update and overview.

Town Council
It was agreed that Spilsby Town Mayor Julia Pears should be invited to the PPG Meeting in November.  Action: Dorothy

3. New build in Spilsby
Jason reported that he had met with the builder and architect of the new development proposals for Spilsby’s Ashby Road, following Chris speaking to them at a recent “awareness/discussion” Spilsby Town Council Meeting. They had proposed to provide a 3 acre corner of the plot for a new surgery (only the land).  Jason suspected that this was just a box ticking exercise and as members knew, it wasn’t that simple to just build a new surgery, in fact, he believed it might be better to have a health clinic instead.  We were reminded that this was a proposal to build 400-600 new homes over a 20 year programme.  Dorothy said she had tried very hard to progress a meeting with Chris Panton, ELDC Head of Planning Committee and Brenda Clayton from the CCG around section 106s but that there had been no response from Brenda Clayton.  It was also noted that there was further development on Boston Road where Waterloo Homes were building 40-60 houses and apartments.  The developers were due to have a further “awareness/discussion” meeting with the Town Council and there was also talk of a one day public consultation to be held at the Franklin Hall.

4. Patient Engagement
It was noted that the Alford Merton Lodge PPG was holding a patient engagement event at Alford Manor Lodge on 17 September 2015 and that if anyone could attend it might give us some useful ideas or how we could do something similar.  It did however, sound like something similar to the Flu Clinic days, where local health and charity organisations attended, which our Surgery already did.  Jeanette proposed that this item also be deferred to the November meeting, so that we could take have a look at the NAPP resources for patient engagement.  Agreed

5. Surgery Update
Jason reported as follows:

  • The surgery had been awarded a Gold Star Framework (GSF) award for palliative care for patients. It was agreed that the Surgery should be congratulated on this.
  • He had been working with Lincolnshire Carers partnership to try and identify and support patients who were young carers. Sarah Summers was the surgery’s carers’ champion.
  • The £5/head initiative had been extended until the end of March 2016 and that George was extremely busy. It was noted that many referrals came from the Surgery’s delivery driver
  • There was an initiative to provide dementia training sessions to the businesses of Spilsby to give them an awareness of dementia and how they could be sensitive to dementia patient habits
  • He was involved with Community Lincs and Father Peter Coates in a good neighbour scheme initiative. The initial step was a survey to find out what people might need in terms of help and what people could provide in terms of help. 1000 forms had been printed for the flu clinic days and Jeanette would also send the form out to all the virtual patients.
  • Flu clinics would be held on 10 October 2015 and 21 November 2015. Patients could already book their appointments. Jeanette, Dorothy and Chris would do 10 October 2015 and Steph, Ken and Enid would do 21 November 2015. There would be stands from Dementia, Carers Partnership and the Lions were arranging refreshments.
  • Dr Jaffrey was leaving early November. The Surgery had secured another registrar for December 2015 to March 2016
  • The Surgery had supported a medical student for the last 4 weeks
  • Nurse Jasmine was leaving on 28 September 2015 to return to intensive care nursing. There was an advert out for a nurse and there would be an agency nurse in the interim.

Jason asked if the PPG would oversee the Medical Equipment Fund as the current trustees didn’t want to do it any longer.  This had charitable status and was a fund where people bequeathed money to the Surgery for the purposes of buying medical equipment.  The surgery apply to the fund when equipment is needed and it has approximately £5k per year on average.  It was agreed in principle that the PPG would oversee it, with Ken as treasurer, however, Jason would set up a meeting with the current trustees to see what was involved.

6. Consortium Update
This had been covered within other items.  In addition poor communication between hospitals and GPs was something which had been covered at today’s meeting.

7. Any Other Business

Pilgrim Appointment Letters
Julie raised the issue of her mother receiving an appointment letter on the same day as the appointment and that this seemed to be happening more and more lately.  Jason said he had also spoken to a patient who had received a letter for cancer treatment on the day of the appointment.  Luckily this patient was off work that day and was able to attend the appointment otherwise he would have been down as a DNA and put to the bottom of the pile.  Julie also noted that the appointment letter her mother had received was dated only a few days before the appointment and that it had been sent 2nd class post.  It was agreed that Chris would raise this at the next ULHT Trustees meeting in October 2015.

Choose and Book service
It was noted that there were now very few appointments on this e-referral service and that the Surgery had had to resort to faxing requests through.

Skip to content