Patient Involvement Group
Church Street Practice, The Health Centre,
Mably Way, Grove, OX12 9BN

Dr Fairley will be returning from maternity leave at the end of January and will be resuming her previous sessions i.e. all day Monday, Wednesday and Friday and Tuesday morning.

Dr Gaw who has been covering for Dr Fairley will drop to two days a week, Tuesday and Friday, from the beginning of February and this will continue until he becomes a Partner in the summer.

Dr Tai will be leaving on 23 January to take up her next hospital post and Dr Mark Coghlan will be joining us for his first 6 months in General Practice on 4 February. We would like to thank Dr Tai for all her hard work over the past 6 months and wish her well for the future. We have really enjoyed having her with us and we are all going to miss her.

We also said a sad farewell to Lesley Boler in October when she moved on to a position as head of nursing in a private company. Lesley was with the Practice for 14 years and worked her way up from a Treatment Room Nurse to a Specialist Practitioner. She contributed so much to the Practice in improving and expanding the nursing services we offer and lending support to our team. We are very grateful for her dedication and commitment and especially for all her efforts to ensure the Practice’s high achievements in the Quality and Outcomes Framework. We wish her every success in her new post.

Sheila Dearman
(Practice Manager)

Those of you who attended our AGM will be aware that PIG have been working on a project called 'A Day in the Life of Church Street Practice...'. This is a special newsletter which follows fourteen members of the practice staff for a whole day and documents what they did, who they talked to and just how it was. On the chosen day, 131 patients were seen by doctors, 35 telephone consultations carried out and 13 home visits made. This does not count the hundreds of prescriptions written, telephone calls answered, referral notes copied and so on. We feel that it has shown us what happens ‘behind the scenes’ in a modern health service practice.

PIG felt that the amount of information given warranted a 'special edition' newsletter and it has led to a 17 page document which we are currently looking at how to publish as it so much longer than anything we envisaged. If anybody has any bright ideas, please let us know! We feel this booklet is very important as it gives an insight into the practice and to our knowledge this has never been done before. People have followed a single staff member but this booklet goes much further than that as it shows how all the individuals (those working directly with patients and those whom we, as patients, don’t see) work together for the benefit of the patients.

The document is soon going to be made available from this website where you can browse or download it.

I hope you, as a patient of Church Street practice, as a patient of another practice or as a staff member enjoy reading this booklet and find it interesting.

Sue Hannon
(PIG)

We have been asked to participate in a pilot project aimed to get general practice more involved in medical research. At present the vast majority of medical research takes place within hospitals whereas most patient care takes place within general practice.

It is therefore difficult to apply some research data to the general practice population. We hope that by recruiting people in general practice we can help to get more useful information.

You may therefore be asked if you wish to participate in research projects. The studies are aimed at specific problems so will vary as to who is asked from time to time. If you have young children you may already have been asked to fill in a questionnaire when you last attended for an appointment. The studies also vary in what is involved, some just ask you to fill in a questionnaire, others involve an interview or may involve different ways to manage the same condition.

You should be given detailed information on what the study involves before you are asked to consent to take part. Please also feel free to ask your doctor any further questions you may have.

IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO TAKE PART, THIS WILL NOT ALTER YOUR TREATMENT IN ANY WAY AND YOU CAN STILL SEE YOUR DOCTOR AS USUAL.

I hope you will help us to make this a worthwhile exercise and to help improve the care we provide in the future.

Dr Liz Mackenzie

We offer free, friendly, confidential advice and support for carers:

• Carers are people of any age, including children and young people, who regularly help someone else, without payment, with everyday living.
• Carers often don’t see themselves as such, and are not aware of the stresses and strains that caring involves, and also carers often don’t know about the practical, financial and emotional support that is available locally.
• South & Vale Carers Centre is a well-established local charity, which exists solely to advise and support unpaid carers of all ages across South Oxfordshire and the Vale of the White Horse.

At the South & Vale Carers Centre, we can:

• Provide a sympathetic listening ear and ongoing emotional support
• Help to increase the household income by helping with Benefits and Allowances. Last year, we helped to increase carers’ incomes by over £750,000.
• Provide advice and information about a whole range of specialist support, including Social Services & Occupational Therapy
• Offer some help towards taking a break
• Offer organised trips out and a chance to meet like-minded people
• Keep carers up-to-date through our regular newsletters and our website.

We are just a phone call away, and we usually visit carers in their own homes, or wherever is most convenient for them. In Wantage we are also able to offer an appointment with one of our Outreach Workers on Tuesday afternoons at the Health Centre. Please just give us a call.

Sue Jeffs
(Carers Centre)

South & Vale Carers Centre 5 Lydalls Road Didcot OX11 7HX Phone: 01235 510212	Open: Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Email: carers@svcarers.org.uk
Websites: www.svcarers.org.uk	www.oxoncarers.org.uk

Firstly may I make a plea to anyone who might travel to Europe. Do; do get a European Health insurance card. It costs you nothing and it is an enormous help if things go wrong. (You get them by starting at the Post Office.)

I have just spent 12 days in a German Hospital (and all on my health card). The hospital was in Fürstenfeldbrük (FFB for short which is a town close to Munich. It has a population of about 50,000 and has an excellent hospital with around 400 beds. (There are also nursing and convalescent homes so bed blocking seldom happens).

The first thing to notice is how underused the hospital actually is. It has a huge range of diagnostic equipment (including a CT machine) and there is no sign of anything like a waiting list .I was admitted on a Monday evening and scanned left right and centre, just as if the staff were waiting for someone to turn up.

The other thing to notice is that there are no out patients. What actually happens is that FFB has 50 doctors in the town (I counted them in Yellow Pages). These doctors cover all likely problems and provide the services that the NHS provides by out patient clinics. (There is even a second CT scanner available in the town.) If you have a problem that FFB can’t handle (such as a heart transplant) then you go to Munich (which is about 20 miles away and has its own, and of course very many more, specialised doctors.

The downside of all this is that the German health service is far more expensive than the NHS. Parts of the costs are covered by taxes, but most patients have to pay for health insurance as well. I was discussing all this with a retired couple who said that they were typical in having to pay 600 euros per month for this. (There is a safety net for those with very low incomes.)

There is a huge behind the scenes bureaucracy as there are 60 or so separate insurance funds, each with their own forms and so on. The government defines the actual fees but all the doctors have to employ clerical staff to process the claims (and to try to bend the rules as far as they can!).

Michael Eden
(PIG)

This meeting was attended by some 60+ people. Initially a brief account was given of the actions and responses to questions raised at the Public Meeting last year. We then had a joint presentation by Pete McGrane, the Clinical Lead and Phil Painting, the Operations Manager from the Oxfordshire Community Urgent Care Service about the Out of Hours services and the Minor Injuries.

GPs are responsible for patient care 08.00 – 18.30 Monday to Friday, At all other times, 18.30 – 08.00, plus weekends and Bank Holidays the Out of Hours (OoH) service, organised by the PCT, takes over. This is not a “drop in” service - patients will be given this number on ringing their own surgery out of hours.(0845 3458995) The calls handling system is based with the ambulance service in Oxford and, in our case, put through to our local OoH at Abingdon. The clinician will then decide on the most appropriate action:- in some cases make an immediate 999 call, give telephone advice, make an appointment to visit the OoH, arrange a home visit. National requirements are that all calls should be returned within 30 minutes, non urgent visits within 6 hours, urgent within 2 hours very urgent within 1 hour. The Minor Injuries unit at Abingdon is a "drop in" nurse led service dealing with injuries - not minor illnesses! It is open 7 days a week from 10am -10.30pm

There was much discussion on the above together with questions eg the role of NHS direct, paramedics, etc. (full report in the Pig file)

This was followed by the AGM reports given re the website, newsletter , meeting with Dr Knox about a study into MRSA, the feedback session on the practice inspection, "A Day in the life of..." , encouragement given to join the committee. Thanks were extended to Bryan Evans for the website, the committee, to Sheila Dearman for her help with the newsletter and to the practice for their support and encouragement.

May Paul
(PIG)

This group held its inaugural meeting in the lush surroundings of The Bear Hotel. Speakers included Dr. Mark Drury, Lesley Boler, a staff member from Wantage Leisure Centre and a professional dietician. There were lots of questions and everyone there felt that it was a good idea and wished to carry on.

The next meeting was in the rather more mundane surroundings of the Education Room at the Health Centre.

Mary and Kate, practice nurses, welcomed everyone and re-emphasised that this would be our group supported by the practice who would help with speakers, etc. Jean Sutherland spoke briefly about running a patient group based on her experience with running a self-help arthritis group and her role on the PIG committee. The following are the main points:

• What sort of a group do we want, should it be for information, self-help, social or all three. The feeling was all three Mutual support could be given to people with diabetes and their partners who would be welcome at meetings.
• Publicity How do we let others know what is happening? Use PIG Newsletter; Practice could alert patients at diabetic clinics, particularly those who are newly diagnosed; a note on clinic invitation; posters in waiting room, diary entries in "What's on", etc.
• Organisation should this be committee or leader? It was decided to have a leader plus help, Francis Sketch offered for first few months, Iris Slight offered to buy tea, etc. 50p each contributions from members – if this proved to be too much we could have a free month.
• Funding Mary said that this could be from drug companies/practice.
• Time We need to decide how often and when. It was felt that bi-monthly meetings would be the best (though this could alter with some early evening meetings in spring and summer months. (We are missing many people who cannot attend during the day).
• Members List This is needed, Jean said she would make up a form for members to fill in with permission (or not) for their details to be held on a computer and/or distributed among members.
• Mary, Kate and members introduced themselves giving very brief details; during this several people said they suffered varying degrees of memory loss. Could this be due to medication or diabetes? We need input on this from medical practitioner.
• Information, talk on podiatry suggested for next meeting.
• Other suggestions were explanations of the many "opathies" that can occur in diabetes, more on exercise and nutrition (in layman’s terms), why should we eat more of some things, what about the sugar content of fruit?
• A counsellor (many people feel depressed when first diagnosed),
• General 'maintenance'
• Someone from the diabetic research group in Oxford.

Many thanks to Kate and Mary for providing refreshments for this meeting.

Jean Sutherland
(DG publicity)

Next meeting Tuesday 10th Feb 2009 2 – 4 pm
In the Health Education Room, Health Centre, Mably Way, Wantage.
'TAKING CARE OF YOUR FEET' – by a podiatrist
Family members also welcome      Tea/Coffee available.