Patient Group Minutes of Meeting, Reports and Surveys

The minutes of the Patient Group meetings are below.

Report of the PPG meeting – 15th January 2025

At the PPG meeting in January we were joined by GP Partner, Dr Michele Giorgi and the meeting was chaired by Practice Manager, Sue Bramley.

The meeting began with a presentation from Practice Development Manager, Shaun Egan who gave members of the PPG an overview of the Online Consultation Platform, SystmConnect. At the last meeting we announced that we would be using SystmConnect which is provided by our core clinical system provider and integrates with our current system.

The initial phased roll out began with patient’s submitting admin requests for Fit Notes, which has expanded to allow for requests for Travel Vaccinations and Non-NHS Reports. Since 6th January we have been accepting clinical requests for an appointment.

It was explained that patient’s can visit the website and submit requests into the Practice without having to call or visit the Practice. He provided members of the PPG with a walk through of how to submit a request and what information patient’s would be asked to complete. We have had a lot of positive feedback from patients and staff since the launch of clinical requests. The benefits of patient’s using SystmConnect to submit a request is that they can input all of the information and be signposted to the appropriate clinician based on their concerns. This will also enable our Practice to work more efficiently as the information is all readily available from the questionnaire the patient has completed. In addition, we hope that patients will become more familiar with submitting an online request, which will free up the telephone lines for those who cannot access online.  We are still in the early stages of this roll out and we are hoping to learn and develop as we move forward.

The Practice Development Manager explained that SystmConnect is available for all patients and requests will be accepted initially between Monday to Friday from 8.00am - 11.30am or until we have reached our daily limit. This is to ensure we are measuring demand and so we don’t find ourselves in an unsafe situation where we can’t meet demand. Outside of this time, if you try to submit a request outside of those times then a warning will appear stating that you cannot go any further.

It was explained that we have not yet seen a reduction on the amount of incoming calls as patients are still calling the surgery and hearing about SystmConnect through the phone message which still counts as an inbound call. It may be several weeks before we notice a reduction in calls.

Members of the PPG expressed positive feedback about how accessible and user friendly it looked. We reflected that we are constantly learning as it is a new system and improving our processes as we go. In the last week we have made changes such allowing patients to attach an image to their request if they are submitting a skin lesion. 

We would continue to update and share development as we move forward with SystmConnect.

Alice Grundy, Communications and Systems Lead gave an overview of the new Dispensing software that was featured in the latest Patient Newsletter. She explained that Titan was introduced to improve the efficiency of our dispensary as well become a paperless practice. The dispensary team have been using the software since November 2024 and we have noticed an increase in productivity and reduction in the time people are waiting for prescriptions.

It was explained that the requesting process has not changed for patients and provided member of the PPG a walk through of what happens to the prescription once it has been approved by the GP to the point in which patient’s collect their medication. The benefits of using this software is that we will hugely reduce the amount of prescriptions we are printing as the information is sent electronically into Titan to produce the labels and to improve safe prescribing measures. We are less likely to have systematic errors because there are safety and checking mechanisms built in to match the medication with the patient within the process.

The Communications and Systems Lead explained that the next phase of Titan is to introduce patient notifications to inform patients that their medication is ready to collect from the Practice. In order to do this, we need verified information from patient’s so we can send information securely. However, we are struggling with getting patient’s to update and verify their contact details. We welcomed the PPG to offer any suggestions on how we could encourage patient’s to do this. Some of the suggestions that were made included adding something to prescription bags or having an alert on the Pratice website to alert patients that they needed to update their contact information.

The Practice Manager asked the PPG if they had received a copy of the latest Patient Newsletter and asked members to provide feedback on the content and whether they found it useful. Members of the PPG agreed it was difficult to communicate information and updates to patients on such a large scale.

The Practice Manager closed the meeting and thanked members for joining. The next meeting will be held in the latter part of the year.

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