Patient Participation Group

Patient Participation Group – Our Practice, Your Say

The Patient Participation Group (PPG) is a way for patients to feed back constructive comments and suggestions for improvements to services which the Practice provides, and to engage in other activities to help the Practice achieve good patient service.

The Group’s active members meet regularly, and also gain the views of virtual members via e-mail. The aim of the Group is to ensure that patients are involved in decisions about the range and quality of services currently (and in the future) commissioned by The Cottons Medical Centre and as a member of a wider GP Commissioning Consortium (Nene Commissioning)

The PPG has a Chairperson,  a Vice-Chair, a Secretary and a Treasurer, and also Practice representatives  – usually the Practice Manager but also a GP when available. The Secretary will keep minutes of meetings and these will be made available for everyone to read.

The Practice will make every reasonable effort to ensure its PPG is representative (carers, ethnic groups and people with learning disabilities) of the community population. Where the Practice encounters difficulty in recruiting a patient representative from a particular group, it may ask a representative body to participate in its PPG.

Membership is open to any patient. You can participate in two ways:

  • as an active member, which will involve attending some meetings and helping with certain activities, such as fund-raising and running patient surveys. 
  • as a virtual member, which involves being informed by e-mail of things going on, and occasionally being asked for your opinion on various topics.

If you wish to join the PPG, or have any questions or suggestions that you would like to raise through the group, then please email  PPGcottons@gmail.com  or please ask at the surgery reception for a form.

What are the expectations of a PPG?

  • It will produce regular newsletters
  • To build improved two-way relationships between patients and the practice
  • To promote awareness of and access to local health services
  • To assist in developing a patient library or information resource centre
  • To help improve the Practice information provision (e.g. leaflets, Web site) 

Some of the Practice and PPG priorities include:

  • Understanding patients’ priorities and issues gained from conducting surveys
  • Addressing Practice priorities and issues including themes from complaints
  • Planned Practice changes
  • Care Quality Commission (CQC) related issues
  • National GP patient survey issues 

What else can it accomplish?

It can influence the development of services by:

  • Advising on the development of new or existing practice premises
  • Representing patient views on the purchase of health services
  • Coordinating with other PPGs to improve wider healthcare delivery
  • Bidding with the Practice to provide new services
  • Fundraising to provide services not covered by the NHS

Common Questions and Answers

We need to be able to contact people to tell them about PPG activities and so on. We would also like to be able to contact people occasionally to ask them questions about the Practice and how well we are doing to identify areas for improvement.
This information is purely to contact patients to ask them questions about the Practice, how well we are doing and ensure changes that are being made are patient focused. If your Doctor is responsible for making some of the changes in the Practice they will be aware of general feedback from patients, but not of any specific patient details.
We will not ask medical questions, but only general questions about the Practice and services provided.
Your contact details will be kept safely and securely and will only be used for this purpose and will not be shared with anyone else.
PPG meetings are roughly every two months. ‘Virtual’ members will be contacted occasionally …our aim is to have a ‘Topic of Discussion’ which will appear on our Web site every few months
Let us know by email and we will take you off of the list. 

We hope you can join us and get involved in making your views on the Practice and local healthcare provision known, and helping to provide the best service possible.

PPG Sign Up Form

Meeting Minutes

Reports