Present:
- Tracy Williams-Walsh
- Carol Ratcliffe
- Group members
- Apologies:
- Mr and Mrs Carter
- Mr and Mrs O’Leary
- Linda and Carole
The meeting started at 5.00pm
- Minutes
The minutes of the last meeting were read and accepted. Nothing had been done about “Friends of the Practice” as there are a lot of more urgent matters.
There was still no idea when we would have our CQC inspection
- The 3 CCG Questions
Just after the last meeting we received 3 question from the CCG and these needed to be discussed and answered by this group. All members of the group had been sent by email or post the 3 questions to look at and we were having this meeting to discuss the answers. Everyone felt that the questions were unusual and difficult to answer simply. Val and Carol had attended an Engagement meeting organised by the CCG at Burnley football ground and they were able to explain the questions by informing the group what had happened at this meeting. Our Satisfaction Survey had been completed already so we could not include them in the questionnaire. We did feel though that they were unsuitable for this kind of survey and that most people would not answer them anyway. After much discussion we did have answers to all 3 questions. These are listed now
- Do you feel that your health and social care needs are planned with people who work together as a team and talk to each-other to understand you and your care needs?
Basically the answer was “No”. We all felt that there is a lack of communication. Various bodies do not appear to work together…no joined up approach. The reason for this may be a lack of staff, funding, resources etc. Hospitals have Multi-Disciplinary Team meetings to discuss individual patients. This should happen in Primary care. At one time there were Community Matrons which has now been superseded by Virtual Ward. How is this helping? we asked. There needs to be a “Care Plan” and a Care Co-coordinator for all patients with multiple problems and the GP Practice should be the central point.
- Do you feel local health services would be improved if the CCG developed a coordinated service between health and social care services for patients in the community?
The answer to this was “Yes”. We did wonder how it would happen though. Social Services are too busy now so how can they work with GPs / hospitals in a more coordinated way? We felt that the teams involved with care must work together and communicate better to improve patient care and have better outcomes. Care Co-coordinators were mentioned again.
- At present many outpatient services take place in hospital when perhaps it may be easier for you to see allied health professionals like dietician or physiotherapist locally somewhere linked with your GP practice. How do you think we could best create community teams to make this happen?
We felt that care in the community would be a good idea using the new Health centres which are usually geographically central to the community. Services should not be provided in individual practices due to expense and any missed appointments would be very expensive in time and money. We do need to share resources. Any service performed centrally must be recorded in the GP electronic record so there needs to be a link to each practice. It may be good for there to be more GP with Special Interest (GPwSI) clinics in centres to save hospital visits. Communication would need to be improved.
Our main concern was that there are not enough staff to fulfil these ideas and that financially it would not be possible. Where would the finance come from? How long is it going to take to do all that is required?
Once we had done this it was agreed that the answers should be sent to the CCG as requested.
- AOB
Carol thanked everyone for their input into this task as it had not been easy and had taken everyone some time to decide on their answers.
There was no other business and the meeting closed at 6.15pm
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