The hugely valuable contribution of those of you involved in patient groups at your GP practice is being recognised nationally.
The hugely valuable contribution of those of you involved in patient groups at your GP practice is being recognised nationally.
And there has never been a better time, if you have the capacity, to get involved in your own group if you are not already.
Patient Participation Groups, or PPGs, use personal experience of using health and care services to influence the way the GP practice delivers their services and PPG Awareness Week, which runs from Wednesday 31 May to Tuesday 6 June is the perfect opportunity to talk about the excellent work being done – and also to say thank you!
You can find out more about how you can get involved with the awareness week on the National Association for Patient Participation website.
At the ICB we have been working with the Patients Association, which is a national organisation, since last year on a project to help surgeries across Hertfordshire and west Essex develop their patient groups.
The work began with a survey of practice manager and GPs, the results of which led to a series of workshops being developed which included information on how to diversify and a step-by-step guide to setting a group up.
The latest phase includes one to one support and the creation of a buddy scheme for those practices needing the advice of established patient groups – further workshops are also planned including looking at the use of social media, at 2pm on Tuesday 6 June.
A toolkit of all these resources including links to all the workshops is now available on the Patients Association website.
If you are interested in signing for the upcoming workshops or finding out more about the patient group project, email Heather Aylward.