February has been another great month for public engagement! We’ve been all over the county working with practice and PPGs, as well as making some excellent connections with Dorset’s fantastic voluntary groups and other stakeholders.
Gill’s month began with the Cranborne Practice PPG meeting online where we heard about the amazing Community SWITCH programme co-created between the PPG and the Crane Valley PCN. It’s an innovative project that you can read more about.
Jim met with Sue and John from PPGs in Weymouth along with Anna from Public Health Dorset to discuss working together to promote healthy eating and lifestyles to people in Weymouth & Portland. The meeting was positive with lots of ideas discussed. We will be looking to restart health talks in the spring and have approached the Friendly Food Club about their healthy food trainer programme.
Gill met up with Michelle Holland from Community Action Network (CAN), a charity that champions Dorset’s brilliant charities and community groups, providing free professional and practical support to groups and organisations working within the voluntary and community sector in Dorset such as PPGs. Several PPGs and PCNs have already taken advantage of the offer, so if you’d like to find out more please do drop Michelle a line at michelle.holland@can100.org
Jim caught up with Benjamin, who started a group on Portland called ‘the den for men’, which offers a free 1-2-1 drop-in service for any man needing support. The group is part of the Sanctuary crisis intervention hub, offering mental health support for people in Portland and surrounding areas. More information about the Sanctuary.
Following the health and culture event held in Dorchester in January, Gill and Jim caught up with Penny Calvert, the south-west creative health associate for the National Centre for Creative Health. It was really good to hear about the work going on to use creative activities to help people’s wellbeing, reducing the reliance on the health service. If you are interested in learning more about how NCCH can support your practice or PPG please drop Gill or Jim a line.
Sandford Surgery has recently joined forces with the eHarleyStreet organisation and Gill went along to their public engagement event. The organisation looks after the business side of many GP practices across the country, with GPs and other clinicians being able to spend less time on business admin and more time on their clinical roles. The area practice manager was in attendance and was excellent at responding to patient queries and allaying their concerns.
At Puddletown PPG’s core group meeting the group heard Age UK are in the process of submitting a funding bid for a befriending coordinator, which will tie-in with their project to have befrienders in the local area. The group also discussed a project to get feedback from people visiting the surgery.
The bi-monthly meeting of the North Dorset PPG Leads network was hosted by Gill online and it was another lively and interesting meeting! This time we had a presentation from Tracy Lyons, Principal Pharmacist at NHS Dorset, talking about how to reduce waste medicines and how to encourage patients to check before ordering repeat medication so that they only order what they need.
Jim went to the Veterans Hub in Weymouth, where he was given a tour by Andy, their project manager. It was an amazing space that offered a café that’s open to everyone, a community grow space, gym, and spaces where veterans could get treatment or counselling. They even had a charity shop at the front of their building. More information about the Veterans Hub.
Gill was very pleased to be invited along to a meeting with Poole Central PCN where we discussed the best way to engage with patients at PCN level, so that patient feedback can be received directly by the PCN. The same day Gill went along to the Quarter Jack Friends of the Practice (PPG) meeting where the group received a very helpful update on the practice merger with the Old Dispensary Surgery.
Jim attended the Dorchester Road PPG meeting virtually. The GP practice has a great facility that enables PPG meetings to be hybrid, which gives flexibility for attendees who want to participate in meetings. There was a packed agenda including the forthcoming merger with Royal Crescent & Preston Road GP practice, the new GP practice website, how patients could make better use of the NHS app, and a discussion on community pharmacies and out of stock medication.
The latest in the series of PPG webinars was hosted by Jim and Gill at the end of the month, this time the subject being Resilience – are you prepared? Clare Jennings, Community Resilience Liaison Officer at Dorset Council, gave an excellent presentation and if you missed it, the webinar recording can be accessed.
Gill was really pleased to be invited to attend the Blandford PPG meeting where she met the group’s new Chair and lots of new members! It was a great meeting with an excellent update from the practice, and it was so good to hear about the Youth PPG project which has really taken shape.
Outside of work Gill celebrated her 60th birthday with a party for family and friends. As her birthday fell on a Monday this year, she felt duty bound to ensure the celebrations spread across not one but two weekends, naturally with two cakes!
Jim and Kelly took a trip to Bristol where they had a great day out exploring the city before seeing Tom Allen’s stand-up show at the newly refurbished Bristol Beacon. They’ve also had their eyes glued to the six nations, but the highlight of their month was joining Gill at her birthday party where there was lots of fun, live music, and of course cake!
So that was February! What a busy month it was and as always so good to be out and about with Dorset’s amazing PPGs, thank you everyone for all your valuable input and feedback as always.
