Patient Group reports
Patient Participation Group
Listening to our patients and responding to what they tell us is fundamental to the high-quality care provided by the Aberfeldy practice. The practice recognises the importance of involving patients in not only treatment decisions but in the planning and development of services and have made significant changes to our service based on patient feedback, examples include the appointment system and development of Dr First.
To understand the patient experience we have used in house and national surveys and facilitated a patient group. To develop a patient led group who are representative of our practice population has always been our aim, however only a small percentage of our registered patients were members of our patient group and attendance was sporadic. To increase participation in the group we advertised in our newsletter, invited three hundred patients by to patient group meetings and followed up with telephone calls to those who showed an interest. For patients who were unable to attend meetings and preferred to communicate through email this option was available. Despite these efforts over the past few years the patient group remained small and didn’t represent our registered patient profile.
To tackle the problem of representation and ensure patient feedback reflected our patient profile we decided to adopt an outreach approach to involving patients. This involved contact with existing groups on the estate and offering to visit and discuss aspects of the service provided by the practice. This approach resulted in meetings with small groups of patients who didn’t attend the patient group but were registered with the practice. In addition to the patient group which meets at the practice we now have a group of parents whose children attend the local school and are registered patients, another group of patients who meet and support members of the community, contact with a luncheon club attended by older members of the community, and a group of patients whose first and main language is Bengali and originally met at the practice to discuss the appointment system. This approach to involving patients continues to develop and we are currently discussing the possibility of involving a virtual parent group for children from birth to four years who use services at the local children centre.
The result of this outreach approach has been the involvement of a wider population and therefore we consider more representative than previous years. On a practical level patients have become involved in aspects of the service which patients identified as important and we receive valuable feedback from a patient perspective, for example a group came together to critically review both the content and presentation of the practice leaflet and information about Dr First. This information would have previously been developed and reviewed by managers and clinicians. Patient engagement is essential to all aspects of clinical and service development and we will continue to seek ways to actively involve patients and develop effective ways of maintaining a patient focused quality service.
Patient involvement action plans
Patient Group survey
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