About the Patient Participation Group

What is it for?

We wants to ensure that patients are more involved in decisions about the range and quality of services provided by their GP surgery and, over time, commissioned by their practice.

We have set up our very own PPG (Patient Participation Group) to work with as many different patients as possible and make sure that the group is a fair representation of our entire patient population.

What are we doing now?

We want to seek views from our patients through the use of local practice surveys. 

We are now reviewing the input from the survey in Feb, thank to those that took the time to complete it.

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Latest PPG Minutes

Meeting Minutes – 30th June 2025

Attending

• Dr Hela Al Sarraj
• Jacqueline Searle
• Anna House
• Katrina Welton
• Peter Brookman
• Sarah Wootton
• Janis Whitaker

Apologies    

• Jacqui Prenczek
• Margaret Robinson
• Frank Matthews
• Jane Primmer
• John Palmer
• Fiona Palmer

1.    Welcome

AH welcomed members to the meeting and acknowledges that the Practice had had a challenging time recently with a number of staff changes. HA was able to confirm a new GP appointment (see Practice update).

PB wanted to convey his appreciation of his recent experience whereby he needed a blood test and an appointment with the nurse to remove stitches. We made contact with him booking both appointments which he said was very streamlined and efficient.

2.    Matters Arising     

We have 3 members with the same initials JP. Going forward Mr Palmer has said he will be happy to be JKP, Jacqui Prenczek remains JP and Jane Primmer’s initials will be amended in due course.

3.    Practice Update

HA went through the staffing changes with new GPs on board now that Dr Zhang has left the practice. His replacement will be joining us mid to end August.

His replacement is a newly qualified female GP who will be working 3 days. Dr Hela has taken on Tuesdays to see Dr Zhang’s patients and the other GPs will share his patient list on the other days. Dr Hela currently works 4 days, Dr Le Rolland 3 days, Dr Utulu 3 days and Dr Shiraz 1 day.

KW asked if patients could switch to a different GP. HA explained the patient lists and how they are collated by number of patients, age and gender, so can be quite complicated. If there is a breakdown of relationship between GP and patient, then this can be done.

We had a long discussion about patient email addresses and how to obtain them. When new patients register, they give consent to receive emails and text messages from the practice, but our longer serving patients, were not given this option. 

We currently have over 2,000 patients who have never been asked to give consent for their email addresses to be used by the Practice. This needs to be corrected over time. We will put a notice up in Reception and make plans, when feasible, to hand out slips of paper at Reception with a friendly request to patients to update their contact details.

4.    Communications

Facebook page.

FP has made great progress and our TMC PPG page is now up and running. HA was able to make use of it recently when there was a problem with the Practice phones.

The group now needs to agree a protocol for what is posted and by whom. This will be discussed and agreed at the September meeting. Meanwhile HA will post any items from the Practice and FP anything from the PCN or the NHS.

Newsletter

There had been a number of problems with the production of the Spring Newsletter.
AH was concerned that we learn from what went wrong and now need a protocol for the format in which a draft copy is submitted to the Practice and the time frame when it can be expected to be sent out.

Website

The website was discussed. Comments included that much information was out of date, there were typos and errors. It was not particularly user-friendly either, eg the information about booking appointments. AH and KW offered to assist to proof read in the future if that was helpful
It was pointed out that the last Newsletter was not added to the site and as mentioned before, it would be nice to  have a piece about the GPs and a photograph on there. 
AH has looked at other surgery websites and they appear to be a lot more user friendly. We need to look into this further.

NHS App support

JKP has done a lot of research on the App and training programmes as to how it can best be used. He will need advice on how the Practice uses the App now and plans for the future. FP has designed a poster re PPG support. JKP and FP will be happy to move forward with this in the Autumn and more details will be given at the September meeting.

5.    Patient Survey 2025

SW worked hard to research surveys which are appropriate and free to use. Sample copies were sent to group members and a number of helpful comments made, including from HA. The consensus at the meeting was that the survey should now be submitted to the practice with a request that it be sent out as soon as possible. Results could then be discussed at the next meeting.

6.    Sevenoaks PCN and West Kent Forum Updates                                                                                                                                             

West Kent Forum is no longer funded to be chaired by an experienced manager. A search is underway to find a volunteer replacement for this important role.

Next Meeting 15th September 2025.