The Heath Surgery - Patient Participation Group (PPG)
The Patient Participation Group (PPG) at The Heath Surgery is a team of volunteer patients who work in partnership with the practice to enhance healthcare services. We provide feedback, share ideas, and amplify the patient voice to help ensure high-quality, patient-centred care.
What We Do:
Gather and Share Feedback:
We collect patient views on services, experiences, and areas for improvement, and share them with the practice to help shape its future.
Suggest Improvements:
We put forward practical ideas to enhance service delivery, communication, and the overall patient experience.
Represent Patient Interests:
We advocate for patients by ensuring their needs, concerns, and preferences are considered in decision-making processes.
Act as a Bridge:
We facilitate two-way communication between the practice and its patients, promoting greater understanding and collaboration.
Support the Practice:
We assist the surgery in understanding patient perspectives and evolving expectations, helping to improve care and services.
Fundraising:
We organise and participate in fundraising efforts to support small-scale projects that directly benefit patients.
In Summary:
The PPG plays a vital role in making The Heath Surgery more responsive, inclusive, and aligned with the needs of its patients and the wider community.
We recognise that not every patient has the time to give the level of commitment to be a PPG Committee member, but may still have an interest and opinions on how to keep the practice’s services at the highest quality. With this in mind, we have an established a second group, the Patient Reference Group (PRG).
We ask members of this group some questions from time to time, such as what you think about our opening times or the quality of care or standard of service you have received. We contact members of this group by email or post.
We anticipate that the group will meet once a year, but arrangements will also be made for members of the group who are not able to attend in person, but feel that they would like to contribute.
We are keen to make sure that the groups remain fully representative of our patients and therefore invite anyone with an interest to enquire about joining or complete an PPG Application Form and return it to the surgery.
This PPG can support patients and the practice in many ways which include:
- Seeking feedback from patients on service development and provisions to inform practice decision making
- Providing feedback on patients’ needs, concerns and interests and challenging the practice constructively;
- Being one of the ways in which other patients in the practice provide feedback to influence service improvements
- Supporting the practice to communicate with patients about how services are delivered and improved
- Assisting the practice and its patients by arranging voluntary groups/support within the community;
- Communicating information about the community which may affect healthcare;
- Supporting the practice in helping patients to become more informed about their health care options
- Promoting good health and higher levels of health literacy by encouraging and supporting activities within the practice and promoting preventive medicine;
- Supporting the practice to gain feedback on and influence secondary healthcare and social care services locally, e.g. hospital discharge and support when back in the community
- Giving feedback to and getting involved in local and national consultations;
- Fundraising for medical equipment or other facilities to improve the practice and/or fund the activities of the PPG; and
- Building relationships with other PPGs and user-led groups in the area.