What is a PPG?

A Patient Participation Group (PPG) is a group of patients, carers and GP practice staff who meet to discuss practice issues and patient experience to improve the service.

What is the purpose of a PPG?

To give patients and practice staff the opportunity to meet and discuss topics of mutual interest.

To provide a means for patients to become more involved and make suggestions about the healthcare services they receive.

To explore issues from patient complaints and patient surveys, propose developments or change, contribute to action plans, and help monitor improvements.

To support health awareness and patient education.

Examples of what a PPG can achieve

• Act as a constructive advisory group, providing perspectives and concerns from patients that can influence how services operate at the practice.
• Communicate to the practice areas of patient concern with a view to influencing change.
• Act as a consultative group for potential changes at the practice
• Encourage and support the role of the practice in involving patients in their own care.
• Monitor complaints and comments received about the practice.
• Create a patient survey with practice staff, to get feedback about the practice from the rest of the patient population.
• Design a newsletter for the practice, to provide regular updates to patients.
• Assist the practice in making sure their website is ‘patient friendly’.
• Engage with the local community via fundraising events and useful health information and events.

What a PPG cannot do

• PPG patient members cannot provide any medical advice to other patients, or deal with personal/medical issues or individual patient complaints during the meeting. These should be dealt with outside the meeting, following the practices already established procedures.
• Act as a forum for indiscriminate complaints.

Who can join the PPG?

We aim to gather patients from as broad a spectrum as possible to get a truly representative sample. Examples might be young people, workers, retirees, people with long term conditions, carers, and people from non-British ethnic groups.

It may be that a “core group” of patients in the PPG are responsible for recruiting more patients and deciding on length of tenure. However, the group is likely to be more manageable if there are less than ten members.

Interested in joining the PPG?

Please complete our application form here

Or

• Contact the practice on 02920 703039 after 2PM, Mon – Fri. The team will take alternative contact details if you are unable to provide an email address.