PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP
Meadowside Patient Group (MPG)
There have been some major changes within the NHS recently and the main focus has been on primary care and general practice. In short, the aim has been to put a lot of the decision making back into the hands of the doctors who care for you on a daily basis.
One area of change has been a more structured procedure to encourage and enhance communication between patients and their doctors. General Practices have been encouraged to set up Patient Participation Groups over the last two years. The purpose of these Patient Participation Groups is to ensure that patients are involved in decisions about the range and quality of services provided and, over time, commissioned by their practice.
The group will consider with the practice what it considers to be the priority areas for practice development and in conjunction with the practice design regular surveys that will be issued to a representative part of the practice population to gain their views on the specific areas recognised. Following the return and analysis of these surveys, the practice and the patient group will:
- Summarise the findings
- Discuss what initiatives/changes can be implemented to develop the practice
- Agree a programme of work for the practice to take forward the findings
- Produce an annual report. This must be made available to view via the practice website and other practice communication forums.
Here at Meadowside we have a very active Patient Participation Group. It is chaired by Julia Bowyer and Catherine Bradley and we meet on a regular basis at Meadowside Medical Centre.
If you would like to know more or get involved in the group then please do not hesitate to contact Catherine on 01260 272331.