Patient Reference Group
Riverside Surgery Patient Reference Group
In September 2011 Riverside Surgery decided to establish a Patient Reference Group (PRG) to enable the practice to fully understand its patients’ point of view and to also encourage positive feedback and suggestions.
PRG key objectives
The main purpose of Riverside Surgery’s PRG was to ensure that patients are involved in decisions about the range and quality of services provided by the practice. The practice wanted a PRG made up of both patients and practice staff who meet frequently to discuss how to better service the community with improved healthcare facilities. Effective use of the PRG aims to promote an atmosphere of proactive engagement of patients and provide the practice with an opportunity to seek the views of practice patients through the use of a local practice survey. The ultimate outcomes of the engagement and views of the patients would be published on the practice website and updated as necessary.
PRG development
A structure was needed that both reflects and gains the views of registered patients to enable the practice to obtain feedback from a cross section of the practice population which is as representative as possible. The PRG should also be designed as a forum to actively encourage and welcome comments and suggestions from members of the local and wider community.
Riverside Surgery felt that it would benefit from setting up both a ‘face to face’ and a ‘virtual’ PRG. The face to face group would meet regularly to ensure momentum, involve practice staff and include volunteers across the patient population. The virtual group, using social media networks such as Facebook® and Twitter®, would be made up of an email community that would be contacted regularly but which does not have regular face to face meetings.
Requests for patient recruitment to either group were carried out in a number of ways:
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Posters/fliers in the waiting rooms and on notice boards
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Fliers placed in prescription bags
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Advert on the practice website
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notice on repeat prescription forms
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Setting up social network forums
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Spreading the word – during consultations, at reception, during clinics and by getting staff to talk to people in the local community.
Once the PRG was formed, Riverside Surgery felt that current PRG members would also be able to recruit new members through friends and family or by talking to patients in the waiting room.
By March 2012, the Riverside Surgery PRG had seven registered patients recruited for the ‘face to face’ group and 32 registered patients in the ‘virtual’ group. A total of 27% were male and 73% were female. All age ranges were represented except for those less than 16 years of age. This group is difficult to target as most social networking sites limit users to over the age of 12 and there is also the consideration of parental consent. Ethnicity of the group is also limited by the social demographics of the locality. Again Riverside Surgery felt that current PRG members could be tasked with targeting any specific care groups to ensure the health needs are met for the entire registered population.
PRG agreement on areas of priority
As a source for positive outcomes, Riverside Surgery’s PRG was developed as a route to improve services provided by the practice and to explore the changing needs of its patients. The use of local practice surveys enables everyone involved to gather ideas for improvement, make modifications to how services are delivered and to gain a measure of patient satisfaction.
As Riverside Surgery had recently undergone major refurbishment in the last twelve months, it was felt appropriate that the local practice survey should consider the patient’s experience within the practice. The survey was developed to contemplate views on
Last updated on 03 March 2012.
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