Patient Participation Group

What is the purpose of our PPG?

• A PPG gives practice staff and patients the opportunity to, where possible, share decision-making in the running of the practice.
• Allows patients to make positive suggestions about the practice, involve further patients from the wider population, and be an advocate for patient preferences when appropriate.
• To encourage health education activities within the practice.
• To develop self-help projects to meet the needs of fellow patients, such as befriending, help with transport, and bereavement support.
• To act as a representative group that can be called upon to influence the local provision of health and social care.

What this is not
It is not a forum to discuss any personal gripes, this is done through the Complaints process.

We meet generally every 3 months for an hour or so and we discuss ongoing matters that concerns both practice and community.  Aside from this, we will make contact, normally via email to advise of any updates.

This group will also be instrumental in supporting community events and possibly fund raising.  If you do not have time for meetings, we can also offer a ‘virtual membership’. This is the same as before, and you still have a valid input into the group, except you do not attend in person. Please advise us of your preference.

We use feedback from patients to improve our service, including from the friends and family test and other patient surveys, see under

• Patient Survey Ratings

We share and discuss this information with our patient participation group and consider ways we can improve.  For practice changes see under

• Practice Improvement

We routinely review the effectiveness and appropriateness of our care in order to ensure we are providing effective and safe care. This is explained further by the RCGP under

• Quality Improvement

Our methods for practice improvement

Clinical audit

There are many different types of quality improvement activity (QIA), one example is clinical audit. This is a process or cycle of events that helps ensure patients receive the right care and treatment. Care and services are measured against evidence base standards and changes are implemented to narrow the gap between existing and best practice.

Other examples of quality improvement activity (QIA)

Apart from clinical audit there are other forms of QIA we do which include:

• review of outcomes data
• small scale data searches
• information collection and analysis (Search and Do activities)
• plan/do/study/act (PDSA) cycles
• significant event analysis (SEA) RCGP Quick guide: Significant event analysis – GP Excellence
• large scale national audit
• reflective case reviews
• reflection on formal patient and colleague feedback survey results.

Reflecting on the quality of care provided

We know we can always improve the quality of care provided and this will only happen with an honest and careful review of the care provided with reference to current best practice guidance.

In the “quality improvement activity” section below we record the results of some of our quality improvement activity which is relevant to a wider audience with some of the changes we have made where necessary or appropriate in order to improve. We also overtime revisit these changes to see whether the changes made have resulted in an improvement.

Practice improvement and our patient participation group