PPG Minutes - June 2025

Attendees

Practice

• Fay Saunders (FS)
• Dawn Williams-Powell (DW-P)
• Jackie Tumelty(JT)
• Dr Myles Simpson (MS)

Members

• Roderick Allison (RA) (Chair)
• Kathy Elliott (KE)
• Elizabeth Monck (EM)
• Tim Kirkup (TK)
• Mick Farrant (MF)
• Judith Philo (JP)
• Cynthia Jensen (CJ)
• Jill Norman (JN)
• Adrian Paterson (AP)
• Simon Pearson (SP)
• Peter Thomas (PT) (online)
• Lola Somefun (LS) (online)
• Lance (L) (online)
• Annette (A) (online)
• David Jockelson (DJ) (online)

Apologies

• Dr Steve Amiel
• Diane Pearson

The minutes of the last meeting (Wednesday 26 February 2025) were circulated on line and can be viewed here. It was agreed that they are a correct record of the meeting.

Practice Update - Jacqui

Service updates

Our Primary Care Network (PCN) has launched a new Microsuction service. Initially, this clinic will be running from Parliament Hill Practiceand is led By Nurse Carl and is available now to Caversham patients. All patients must first be seen by a Clinician at the practice and assessed as suitable.

In the future we will run the clinic at The Caversham , we are just getting two of our nurses trained in the procedure. The Caversham will be offering Cryotherapy (removal of skin tags & warts by freezing them) from late July. Our staff have been trained, and we are in the process of finalising our internal clinic processes, before launching in late July.

Staff

GP Partner Dr Judy Bennet will be retiring in the summer, if you would like to sign her farewell book please do. We will be having a patient tea party on Friday 8th August from 4:30pm to 6:30pm to bid her farewell.

We have recruited a new permanent salaried GP Dr Selen Dogan who previously a registrar with us.

Dr Alex Warner is on sabbatical July to October and we will be welcoming back Dr Erica McNabb to cover.

Dr Anouska Seegobin is on maternity leave & Dr Ellis will be going on maternity leave Dr Hiral Rani will cover her & it will be nice to welcome Dr Rani back as she previously trained at the practice.

We have a new Smoking Cessation practitioner – Patrick Robb

Practice Newsletter

Spring edition was distributed via direct messaging and through the waiting room. Our Summer edition will be published in July.

Recent Social Prescribing Activity

The River of Hope concluded its 3rd year in March. The River of Hope is a festival of Health and Wellbeing across Camden. This year we worked with the Camden Council participation team and saw various community organisations hosting 9 community events. At The Caversham we initiated and organised 2 events:

• Zen in Mind – wellbeing Festival in February (Over 40 patients and Mind Service users attended).
• A Mind & Body pilot programme for people with ADHD ran during the month of March – these were all Caversham patients.

EM asked if this was for people with a diagnosis. It was attended by people with a diagnosis and others who were on the waiting list.

There is an evaluation report featuring all the projects . Click here to go to the project evaluation document.

Key features of the programmes we ran, were they were all hosted with other health or community-based partners & both projects will, fingers crossed, be sustainable. We are hoping to host another Zen in Mind session in July & Castlehaven have put in a bid to run more Mind & Body Exercise programmes. There was a close working relationship with the Council.

Digital Inclusion sessions

In April we piloted some digital inclusion sessions & we now have a regular series of sessions set up – every other Wednesday as part of our Helping Hands initiative. So far, we have helped approx. 15 patients and there is a session planned for next week with approx. 2 patients booked. In total we have seen approx. 15 patients in total. Voluntary Action Camden (VAC) helped with the training. Other practices are learning from the initiative which was shared through the Social Prescribers Network. KE asked if an update could be highlighted in the newsletter. TK was interested in finding out more about being a volunteer.

Kew Gardens visit

In May Jo Lynch organised a patient visit to Kew Gardens on their Community Day. Jo took 19 Caversham patients & Parliament Hill came along with 9 of their patients. Caversham patients were members of craft, walking & gardening groups.
We hosted a Garden meeting in June – to discuss how we could utilise the garden more and what facilities we would ned in there. Approx 10 people took part in the session, 6 patients, 2 people from the memory service, Camden Anchor Trustee, staff member and an external facilitator.

Following this meeting has been set up to talk to the Memory Service abouthow we can work together more closely and contact with NW5 has been made. The next actions will be circulated to the PPG.

Action from last meeting was to update the Practice website with details of the Practices Social prescribing activities. This has been completed & is on-going.

Plant Sale

This was held on Friday 6th June we had a lot of visitors.

PPG / Peckwater Centre

Action from last meeting : JT & RA to liaise about closing down the petition. Final numbers of signatures on the petition were 21,208. The petition declared VICTORY on 18th March 2025 & issued the following Victory
statement update :

The Caversham Group Patient Participation Group (PPG) and this petition have successfully made key decision makers stop and re-think their original proposals of using the Peckwater Centre and potentially The Listening Space garden, to accommodate a secondary care dialysis unit.

We would like to thank all our supporters and activists; you have done a tremendous job.

In November 2023 it became public that The Peckwater Centre, a purposebuilt primary care hub in Kentish Town, was being considered as part of the redevelopment of St Pancras Hospital site, as a building to accommodate a secondary care dialysis unit. This would have meant that community services would be moved out to smaller premises and dispersed across the community and potentially lost. There was at this point no process for meaningful consultation with the community about the loss of this important centre of Primary Care.

The PPG launched a campaign group whose aim was to achieve meaningful consultation with patients at the practice and the wider community regarding these proposed changes to local healthcare facilities.

The Campaign consisted of on online petition (Over 21,000 signatures), written and oral representations within the NHS hierarchy and Camden Council, letters and articles in the local press and a physical demonstration which received excellent media coverage. These actions brought your views to the attention of decision makers to enable them to make a more informed decision. The outcome of this is the Peckwater Centre has been taken off the list for consideration as a dialysis unit.

The work of the Caversham PPG was recognised at the first Londonwide LMCs awards, where we received a Commended award for work on The Peckwater Centre.

We will be closing the petition, but our work continues as we are seeking active involvement in how The Peckwater Centre is developed e.g. what health and social care teams might best be added to those already located there, and to maximise the integration of health and social care services. We are working with other PPGs and community groups in the locality to ensure a broad community voice is heard.

LMC Award to PPG

The PPG website page has been updated with information about this award, Subsequently Rod, Kathy & Jackie were interviewed by the LMC communications team – we are waiting for them to send over a write up of our interview to get our agreement.

Falls training - Action from last meeting – CG shared information on a course on helping people to fall safely and balance – FS & JT agreed to speak to our Get active expert – to see if we could find anything relevant locally.

We have found some written resources but no face-to-face course at the moment.

The group thanked Jackie, and others in the team, for the practice update. In particular RA voiced the groups’ appreciated of the follow up and action completed for a number of issues that had been raised by PPG members in previous meetings.

MF described difficulties he had with the NHS app for repeat prescriptions and face recognition. FS said that prescriptions can be ordered at reception, using a special form. All the other options for ordering
prescriptions are still available. There are still concerns about people who are having difficulties or can’t use the digital options. There was interest and support in the digital inclusion sessions.

Patient feedback on Long Term Condition Reviews

As part of the Practice’s management of Long Term Conditions(LTC) , they are asked by the Integrated Care Board (ICB) to anonymously contact a selection of patients who have taken part in their yearly review process to get feedback. It includes services to achieve better control of hypertension, including blood pressure, and conditions such as diabetes, COPD, and asthma. FS had asked RA and KE to give feedback on the data, and would also value feedback from the PPG. EM asked if there could be a system of MOT’s so people don’t develop diabetes or other conditions. MS and FS gave information about the NHS Health Check programme. PPG members had different experiences. Some had invites and had experienced the service, while others hadn’t. They asked why invitations were stopped at 70 years of age. MS explained that the Health checks (for 40 to 70 year olds with no pre existing conditions) were introduced to support early identification of LTCs such as cardio vascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, hypertension. The NHS stop these routine checks after 70 as by that age the majority of people with LTC will be in a treatment regime. Other PPG members shared their experiences of other reviews, for example prescription reviews and blood pressure reviews. JP gave feedback on her experience when she wasn’t satisfied with a telephone review. The practice undertook to look at the communication to patients about the reviews and health checks.

Patient Survey

FS said that the practice is planning a patient survey. A draft was shared for initial feedback. The aim is to have it take about 5 minutes and be open for 3-4 weeks. At present it is 7 questions. The draft questions included appointment time preferences; ways the practice communicates with patients; experience of last visit and ideas for improvement; PPG members were interested in how it would be done? Who it would be given to? They offered ideas to make the questions clearer. They asked whether demographic information would be collected. They were concerned that all patients would be able to contribute, for example those who spoke a language other than English, people with hearing, sight or memory problems.

As part of this discussion there was feedback about the accessibility of other communications from the practice, for example the newsletter. The practice (JT) undertook to think about how the newsletter and other communications could be accessible to all patients.

Future of the Peckwater

RA thanked the members of the campaign group and JT for sending out information about the successful conclusion of the campaign. The focus now has to be on how the Peckwater develops.

He gave an update on the services which are being considered to be in the Peckwater. Long-term conditions health services for Heart failure, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder), Diabetes & Podiatry (clinical as well as admin) were planned to move in in July, and Neurodevelopment disorder service in the autumn. These would join the services already in the Peckwater - social care (Camden'sCommunity Mental Health team for older adults, Care Home Liaison service & Memory (dementia) service) - and health (the Wheelchair, Vaccinations for the housebound & Musculoskeletal (MSK) physio services and the gym for stroke, neurology & MSK patients).

An Advisory Group is being formed, and the Chair of the PPG has been asked to be a member.

The group agreed that it was very encouraging. EM asked about the age range of users and the focus of the services. For example, will there be services for abused children? MS explained how they were thinking about relevant local services. MF asked if a counsellor would be on the steering group.

Horizon scanning

MS updated on our Primary Care Network (PCN), which includes Caversham, Parliament Hill, and Prince of Wales practices. Some funding for services is now being made available to PCNs and not directly to all practices. He asked whether we would support the formation of a group similar to the PPG for the PCN. The group had questions about the PPGs in the other practices, and the commitment that would be involved. There was support for an initial yearly meeting, focussing on issues of mutual interest through the PCN. There were concerns that it wouldn’t be able to address issues with practices outside our PCN. MF raised the issue of Blood Tests at the Whigg. FS updated on the work that had been done to try and resolve the issues which relate to the transfer of information.

Thanks to Rod as he stands down as Chair

Rod, who has chaired the group for ten years, has decided to step down. The members of the PPG and the practice thanked him for all his work and support, which has been much appreciated. He thanked all, and particularly Kathy Elliott, the Campaign Group and notably MickFarrant and Diane & Simon Pearson, and from the practice Fay, Jackie and Steve Amiel. KE agreed, as co-chair, to be the new chair.

Next meeting

• Requests for the next meeting
• the practice links with Connect Kentish Town (DJ)
• AI (EM)
• More notice of the meeting date(s)
• Date of next meeting – 28th October 11am to 12:30pm