Since 2015, it has been a contractual requirement for all GP practices to have a Practice Patient Participation Group (PPG). They provide feedback and suggest improvements that can be made to the services offered by the Practice. This offers open discussion and an alternative perspective on the many topics relevant to general practice.
What is the Patient Participation Group?
The Patient Participation Group (PPG) act as a liaison between the Practice and its patients. They are an advisory group of members, who work voluntarily with us as ‘critical friends’ to help us improve services for the patient population.
The group is required to ensure that we provide high quality care that meets the needs of our patients and carers. It puts you, and improving health, at the heart of everything it does. It is a group of people that want to help the surgery to work as well as it can for patients, doctors and staff.
The NHS requires every practice to have a PPG to provide feedback and suggest improvements that can be made to the services offered by our Practice. It offers open discussion and an alternative perspective on the many topics relevant to general practice.
The role of the PPG includes:
• Being a critical friend to the practice
• Advising on the patient perspective and providing insight into the responsiveness and quality of services
• Encouraging patients to take greater responsibility for their own and their family’s health
• Carrying out research into the views of those who use the practice
• Regular communication with the patient population
We aim to regularly review feedback with our PPG to consider areas for improvement, such as:
• Patient and carer priorities and issues
• Themes from complaints and suggestions
• Planned practice changes
• Care Quality Commission (CQC) related issues
• The GP patient survey and bespoke surveys
• The Friends and Family Test
• Working with local commissioners (CCG/NHS England/Local Authority)
• Views from local voluntary and community groups, including Healthwatch
Who is part of the PPG?
The Patient Participation Group is developed in a way that ensures regular engagement with a representative sample of the practice population, and it should have a structure that allows it to reach the broadest cross-section of the patient population. These meetings are also attended by staff of the Practice, which enables views of both staff and patients to be discussed.
If you have been to the surgery as a patient, parent, carer or friend, your experiences matter and you can bring different ideas to the surgery to help us treat patients better and to improve what we do in some way.
You will also gain a better understanding of the NHS, and gather feedback from other patients. Your opinions are important and will be listened to. It may not be possible to act on every suggestion, but all feedback is valuable to us. Working in a spirit of mutual respect, openness and trust, all patients’ views will be discussed and, where appropriate, we will work together on solutions.
How often does the PPG meet?
The PPG meet at the surgery, but not too often.
We know that you are busy, so we meet only a few times a year and hope that you can join us.
If you are interested in joining our PPG, please click the link below to open the sign-up form and complete all the fields.
If you prefer, you can download the sign up form as a pdf document, print it out, complete it and return it to the practice.
Your details will be passed onto the PPG Chair, who will contact you to discuss the PPG further. Therefore please do not include sensitive medical information.
Many thanks for your assistance
The information you supply us will be used lawfully, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. The Data Protection Act 1998 gives you the right to know what information is held about you and sets out rules to make sure that this information is handled properly.