Patient Participation Group

• The meeting was attended by 15 people
• Apologies (6 people)

Talk and Q&As with Dan Hill (Practice Manager, College Green Medical Practice) about his role in CGMP

Dan explained his role as practice administrator, covering issues such as staAing, appointments, phone calls, finances of the building and addressing staA pressures. CG now has reached the 20,000-patient target but this brings new pressures on existing resources. There is now funding for two extra GPs, starting in August, equivalent to an extra 10% in GP ‘volume’.

The feedback from the GP patient surveys is generally good. However, patients clearly are now demanding more appointments. The switch to ‘System Connect’ for making an appointment is going well but it is turned off at weekends. Some 86% of contacts through the system following completion of the online form have resulted in a face-to face appointment. Hence the impact on reducing staff pressure has been lower than expected. This growing demand has been addressed by extended access in evenings and on Saturdays. A new ‘Virtual Receptionist’ is being trialled, which takes the caller through the questions on the System Connect form. A remote pharmacy technician has been recruited to deal with the time-consuming matter of discharge letters.

As demand for CG services increases, digital solutions are more in the fore but are not liked by some patients. There are still pitfalls in communication between the CG and local hospitals.

Given the existing pressure on human resources, staff absences at short notice from illness can lead to cancellation of appointments.

The Wellbe programme in conjunction with pharmacists has become more user-friendly with an ‘annual review’ now made possible and repeat prescriptions authorised.

Dan said that there is more opportunity for online services to reduce staff pressure and releasing resource time for complex cases of patients who require continuity of care and can then be seen by a specific dedicated member of the GP team.

He pointed out that nationally the NHS is currently giving priority to GP practices working more ‘in the community’ with other bodies such those in the social care sector. In our city, UHB is the lead organisation promoting this approach.

One of the major aims of Dan’s work is to make it as simple as possible for patients to receive the care from CG that they need.

Minutes of meeting of 4 March 2026

• agreed

Matters arising from the Minutes

• none

Report of Chair for year May 2025 to June 2026

• see below

Report from the Practice Manager

• Opportunities, Positives and Problems – agreed that this was covered mainly by Item 2.

Nominations received and election of Chair, Vice Chair, Minutes Secretary

• (see below at end of this message) - no nominations received. Richard Tuckett agreed reluctantly to carry on for one more year as the PPG chair. Andrew Nickson agreed to continue as Minutes secretary.

Questions in advance of the Meeting

• none

Questions from those present

In response to a question, Dan said that there is a dedicated team to deal with complaints, some of which derived from unrealistic expectations. Dealing with complaints is time-consuming and currently they amount to ‘a few a week’. He felt that they could often be more easily resolved if dealt with immediately by a phone call rather than going through the formal and time-consuming reporting procedure. A questioner from the Bournville Garden Residents Association asked if staA could be reminded not to drive the wrong way up the one-way system to the parking lot.

Any Other Business and Future Meetings

There was a rich discussion kicked oA by John Nightingale about how to best attract new members to the PPG. He suggested texting everyone on the CG patient list once a year with information about the PPG and including a link to our email so that people could sign up to our mailing list. Dan reported that the ICB is now charging a fee for sending text messages to patients on behalf of GP practices.

One attendee noted that when she registered at the practice, no information was given to her about the existence of the PPG. Richard reported that he has an online chat with chairs of other PPGs and we could perhaps get some ideas from them. Apparently, they felt that there should always be a GP at the PPG meetings. It was also suggested to consider having a PPG meeting in online form or else in hybrid form. If a text message provided a deluge of attendees, we could consider holding our meeting at the next door Bournville Gardens.

It was generally agreed that we need to ‘try something’ diAerent’ to give more impetus and impact to the PPG.

It was suggested that we invite someone to talk about the integration of NHS with Social Care, as part of the ‘Big Conversation’ launched by the incoming government of PM Burnham. Richard Tuckett agreed to follow up.

The meeting closed at 7:50 pm. No date was agreed for the next meeting, but probably in October or November.