July 2, 2025

Agenda

Pond Tail PPG Meeting

Minutes

Meeting of the Patient Participation Group 2nd July 2025

 

The first meeting of the Patient participation Group (PPG) under the chairmanship of Jackie Clark was held at the surgery on the 2nd July.  Meetings are held quarterly at the surgery

 

Present at the meeting were:

Patients: Huw and Philomena from Bletchingley and Ian and Jackie from Godstone.

Pondtail Staff: Fran Lemanska Practice Manager, Jenny Williams Deputy Manager and Emma Linnard GP Clinical Lead

Apologies were received from Alan a patient from Godstone

 

The agenda focused on

1.        How to recruit new members to the PPG

2.        How to ensure that patients can contact the PPG with their concerns

 

Recruiting new members to the PPG aiming to increase our number ideally to at least 8

Jenny has produced a very useful leaflet to encourage people to join the Group.  It was suggested by Emma and agreed that GPS, Nurses, Health Care Assistants, District Nurses, Midwife, Health Visitor and Care Co-ordinators should have copies of the leaflet to pass on to patients.  It would also be available on the front reception desk. Leaflets could also be available at the local school and organisations such as the Scouts etc

Everyone agreed that the PPG needed patients that represented the wider community including those living with disabilities, carers, young people, parents, members and former members of the Armed Forces, minority ethnic groups and those living with mental illness.  Enabling patients to attend the meeting virtually was discussed and everyone felt that this would help with recruitment as we are a rural community and many have responsibilities that mean it’s not easy to be away from home. Fran will set this up and it would be available at each meeting.

 

How to ensure that it is easy for patients to contact the PPG and that patients are made aware that the PPG is not a forum for personal clinical issues

·          Ideas put forward were a PPG email address be created for those who have this facility available, using the Suggestion Box in reception and patients could write to the PPG via the surgery address

·          Philomena raised concern that patients and others could use this opportunity for abusive and inappropriate messages and public comments.  Fran will contact Dorking Health Care to discuss this further

 

AOB

 

·          A new Performance Infographic has been created by Fran.  Everyone at the meeting felt that this was a very useful addition to the surgery website. It gives details of Surgery activity over the month of May.  It includes number of patient appointments, referrals, prescriptions etc.  It was noted that figures included the fact that there were 70 missed appointments which equates to a day and a half of clinical time!  A new policy is being developed to manage this problem

·          Ian suggested that the PPG raised funds to help the PPG Operate

·          Formal Terms of Reference and Purpose of the PPG will be discussed at the next meeting

·          Jackie told the meeting that at the moment records of each meeting will be published on the PPG section of the Pondtail Website following that meeting but no Newsletter will be published at present

 

Date of next meeting 1st October 2025