Author: Any Authorised Employee
Last saved by: MORIARTY, Siobhan (FITZROVIA MEDICAL CENTRE)
Company: Westminster PCT

Fitzrovia Medical Centre

Patient participation group
Meeting 26^th May 2021

Attended: Dr Clare Orrom Swan (Partner) COS, Siobhan Moriarty, (Practice Manager) SM, June Wilson -  JW and Arnie Aretz - AA

Agenda item 1 - Welcome and introductions

Siobhan welcomed patients, June and Arnie and introduced herself as the new practice manager. Dr Orrom Swan introduced herself and explained that she is one of the new partners at the practice along with Dr Thanh Mai Nguyen. 

Agenda item 2 - Management of COVID in the practice

SM explained that the practice has been opened throughout the pandemic. SM and COS explained that all practices were instructed to only provide emergency care during the pandemic, this meant providing only emergency appointments and ceasing all routine care. The appointment system was amended to reflect this, meaning there were three duty doctors running emergency appointments throughout the day; however, we also provided one routine clinic each day. All patients were triaged on the phone, but if needed were asked to come in for a face to face appointment with the GP. 

Fitzrovia Medical Centre was the first practice in the primary care network to run a pop up COVID clinic in practice. Some of our patients who were nervous to travel to the vaccination sites or were unable to get there, were invited in to the surgery to receive their vaccine. The pop up clinic was a success, with all patients invited attended. 

Both COS and SM explained that the practice was also the first to re-open its doors to patients and the first to re-introduce face to face appointments within our clinics. 

Agenda item 3 - Appointment system and access

COS and SM explained that now general practice is returning to “normal” the team held a practice meeting to discuss the appointment system and access. We acknowledged that asking patients to call on one day at 3pm is limiting access for patients, often resulting in a long wait to get through on the phone and appointments going very quickly. It was decided to resolve this, appointments are released every day at 3pm for the following week day. Reception have been asked to triage the call, asking the patient whether they would like to be added to a waiting list to see the GP of their choice, call at 3pm, or if the concern is not urgent to submit an econsult. The appointment system will be reviewed in 6 months’ time and COS and SM will ask for feedback from the PPG as to whether the new system is working. 

Agenda item 4 - New telephone system

A new telephone system is being installed at the practice at the end of June. The upgrade will allow more telephone lines in and out of the practice and also a function to enable patients waiting on the phone to opt to receive a call back from reception instead of holding on the line. All calls will be recorded for training and safety purposes. Management will also be able to see on a dashboard the number of calls coming into the practice, meaning the flow of calls can be monitored. 

Agenda item5 - How to recruit new PPG members

All agreed that it is a challenges to attract members to the group. SM explained that she had a number of patients that expressed an interest to join the group via new registrations. It was discussed that hopefully with regular meetings scheduled more people will feel confident that the group will be running consistently and will therefore attend. Different timings of meeting may help attendance, with possible Saturday meetings. All present agreed that we should run a PPG meeting every 3 months. 

Date of next meeting – Thursday 2^nd September 2021