We are currently seeking an additional member to represent the younger generation of patients, so please do get in touch if you’d be interested.

Dunster & Porlock Patient Participation Group – current members

Sally Priddy      Alcombe    Chair

David Moore     Dunster     Vice Chair

Chris Smith      Bicknoller   Secretary

Jessica Clinch   Dunster

Wendy Cook     Timberscombe

Jim Kent          Old Cleeve

Wendy Lynch   Porlock

Brenda Moore  Dunster

Tim Forster      Porlock

TERMS OF REFERENCE OF THE

PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP OF

DUNSTER & PORLOCK SURGERY

Agreed:                     23^rd May 2017 

 1.Name

The name of the group will be the Dunster & Porlock Surgery Patient Participation Group (PPG)

2.Purpose

     The purposes of the Patient Participation Group (PPG) will be to:

1. contribute to appropriate practice decision making and to be consulted on relevant service development and provision;
2. provide feedback and interpretation from patients and to challenge the Practice constructively when necessary;
3. identify gaps or problems in services provided by the Practice
4. serve as a source of information for dealing with trends in patient complaints about services provided by the Practice, whilst also helping patients to understand the Practice’s viewpoint;
5. assist the Practice and its patients in setting up focus groups to address issues within the community as agreed by the PPG;
6. help the Practice to communicate information effectively to patients;
7. give patients a voice in the development of local healthcare services;
8. promote good health by supporting health promotion activities within the Practice;
9. liaise and share experiences with other PPGs

3.Membership

The core membership will be a maximum of 12 patient representatives who

are registered at the Practice. Initially this will be with proportionate numbers

from each of the previous practice lists of Dunster/Porlockl/Brendon Hills surgeries, based on the number of patients from each area.

As the PPG develops it may consider expanding its membership to include further patients, and a Virtual PPG will be established in due course.

Consideration should be given for new members to be selected in order to reflect the specific demographics of the practice population. Acknowledging the largely rural geography, the aim should always be to have representation from as many different areas of the practice catchment as possible.

The Chair of the PPG should be one of the patient representatives and should be selected by the group at its first formal meeting by a majority vote.

The Chair should be rotated every 12 months unless the vote is in support of a Chair continuing for a further 12 months.

Members may choose to leave the PPG at any time but it is expected each individual’s term of office to be between 3 to 4 years.

 4.Meetings

Meetings will be held approximately every 3 months unless there is a majority in favour of changing the meeting frequency or a need for a meeting to deal with a specific issue.

An Agenda will be produced in advance of each meeting.

Meetings will aim to be no more than 1 hour in duration.

The conduct of meetings will be as follows;

• meetings will not serve as a forum for individual complaints or issues
• members will not use the meeting to voice personal grievances or issues they have with the Practice
• communication will be open and honest and allow challenge between all members
• all views will be listened to and respected
• patient confidentiality to be observed at all times
• actions identified will be allocated to named individuals with an expected time limit for completion 

 5. Decisions

Decisions made by the PPG will constitute recommendations to the Dunster & Porlock Surgery Partnership and will not be binding on them to comply. If any recommendation is not supported by the Partnership this will be explained to the PPG.

NOTICE OF A MEETING OF THE
DUNSTER AND PORLOCK SURGERY
PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP

 

AGENDA


1.​Welcome and Apologies

2.​Notes of last meeting –

3.​Matters arising - including
 
4.​PPG Chairs’ Meeting – report back – Tim Forster

5.​Reports from Practice

6.​Any other business
 
7.​Date of Next Meeting
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Dunster and Porlock Surgeries' Patient Participation Group 

The Dunster and Porlock Surgeries’ Patient Participation Group (PPG) was reformed in May 2017 with new and former patient members from each of the two surgeries (and from the former Brendon Hills practice).  At any one time we expect to have 12 members broadly representative of the geographical spread of the patient population.

A list of the current members will be displayed in each surgery and included in the PPG part of the surgeries’ website.

The PPG plays an important role in helping to shape the services and facilities available at the combined practice.

The PPG is independent of the surgery but works closely with the Practice Managers and GPs to help Dunster and Porlock Surgeries build an understanding of the patient's perspective.

We meet quarterly and the date of our next meeting can be found under the Minutes tab of the PPG section of the website.

We are always keen to hear your views on any aspect of your experience at Dunster and Porlock. 

There is a Suggestion Box in the surgery for patients to give feedback and submit ideas, and all comments are shared with the PPG. 

You can also provide the PPG directly with feedback and ideas to help us improve our local services via the ‘Contacts’ tab above.

A quarterly newsletter is distributed in paper form with prescriptions. An electronic version will be distributed via email to patients who have provided their email addresses to the practice.   If you receive a newsletter via email and decide you no longer wish to do so, please inform the surgery.