I mentioned the Health and Wellbeing event at the Beacon (this Saturday 22 April 12-4pm) in this column last week - see https://wellbeing.ox12.org/ for more details.

This is being organised by Newbury Street and Church Street Patient Groups, so what is a patient group?

Since April 2015 it has been a contractual requirement of NHS England for all GP Practices to have a Patient Participation Group (PPG).

The NHS states that a PPG will be made up of patients and carers, the practice manager and one or more GPs and should meet on a regular basis to discuss the services on offer at the practice and how they can be improved.

As each GP practice works a little differently, each patient group has a slightly different way of working but all patients and carers of patients are entitled to have a voice, although the PPG will not address individual or personal doctor/ patient problems/ complaints.

Church Street Practice Patient Group lists it’s aims as:

•   To foster an understanding of the practice and help to influence its development.

•   To gather and share with the doctors the views of patients and their families about how the practice works.

•   To promote an understanding of the issues involved

•   To draw attention to unmet needs

•   To provide opportunities for all concerned to meet together

Newbury Street Practice Patient Group is slightly different and its aims are:

• To provide a mechanism to encourage patients suggestions and constructive feedback about the Practice.
• To offer the Practice the patient perspective and provide insight into the responsiveness and quality of services.
• To support the Practice in helping patients become better informed about ways in which they can improve their health and wellbeing.
• To support research into the views of those who use the Practice.
• To support health promotion events and aim to improve health literacy.
• To ensure that the work of the group reaches as wide an audience as possible within the patient population.

Both groups continued to operate during the pandemic by holding virtual meetings and tried to support the practices as much as possible.

Now that the demand for primary care services seems to be increasing throughout the country, it’s even more important that PPG’s can work with their Practices to ensure that health services are used as effectively as possible.