PPG minutes 12th July 2021

Minutes of the meeting of the SBMC/SOHC/Brookes Patient Participation Group

Held in the garden of SOHC on 12th July 2021

Welcome and attendance

Present: Jenny Darnley (Chair) Geraldine Coggins (Vice-Chair) Nargis Khan (Practice Manager) Jo Hearle (Deputy Practice Manager), Dr Nick Wooding, Phil Kelly, Penny Faust, Wendy Spray, Geraldine Coggins, Lynn Degele, Paul Luff, Miriam Jellinek

Gerald Dorey (Observer)

Apologies

Daisy Hopkins (Oxford Brookes), Jill McCleary in absentia, Tony Wappner, Cllr M Tidball, Richard Stonman, Amanda Robson

Ex-Councillor Bob Price sent his apologies and his resignation from the PPG. Jenny recorded her thanks to him for his big contribution to the SOHC PPG over the years.

Minutes of the last meeting [15.03.21]

The minutes were agreed to be an accurate record and fit to be posted on the website

Matters Arising

There have been no volunteers for the role of Secretary to the group. Geraldine volunteered to do the notes of the current meeting and suggested that the role of minute/note taker should revolve round the group in turn. Jenny said that it would be useful to know who would be taking the minutes next time and encouraged members to contact her.

Practice Updates

a) Telephones:

Jo reported that the new queueing system was working well. The ring-back system kicks in if a patient is fifth or more in the queue.

There was some discussion of the long message one has to listen to, but the practice staff feel that this is all essential information and needs to be there.

b) Commercial trial at SOHC

Nick reported that a new commercial trial investigating a vaccine to protect against RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) has started at SOHC. It will run for three years and Nick encouraged patients to join, if eligible. There have already been two small trials but this is a bigger one which will raise money for the practice, needed for repairs to the building.

Web Site

Paul reported on the meeting between the web designer and some PPG members. It was felt by all involved to be a good exercise and the PPG members were able to give useful feedback and influence the final design. The new website is due to go live within the next week. Jenny thanked Paul, Geraldine, Lynne and Wendy for all their positive input.

Vaccination clinics

Jenny reported that these were continuing, but that she had withdrawn from providing volunteers for the weekday afternoon clinics as there were fewer patients and there was little for the volunteers to do. The recent weekend walk-in clinics were very busy to start with but were quite slow now despite being widely advertised. There are also regular scheduled appointment clinics at weekends, both for the Pfizer and the AZ vaccine.

Geraldine asked what percentage of the local population had yet to be vaccinated. Nargis said that would take some time to ascertain. There may be lots of students receiving the vaccine in their home towns and that information would take time to get back through the system.

Uploading of GP Data to NHS Digital

Nargis said a text has been sent to all patients with information on how to opt out of their data being shared with NHS Digital. The deadline has now been extended to September 1st 2021. Not everyone in the group had seen it as it was at the end of a longer message.

Different views were expressed about the need to opt out. Nargis said that this information was anonymised and useful for research. Others said that it could easily be de-anonymised and used to identify individuals and the worry was that if the NHS were to be sold off this information, including family histories, would be made available to health insurance companies.

The view was expressed that it was not a matter of trusting NHS Digital, but of trusting the Government.

There was a brief discussion on how to inform patients. Nargis said that it would be on the new website. There may also be posters displayed.

Any Other Business

Jenny thanked the admin staff for the organisation of the face-to-face meeting (the group’s first) and the lovely refreshments provided.

Date of Next meeting

Monday 13th September at 6.00 pm on Teams.