March seemed to fly by so quickly for us, it was probably due to the amount of activities we’ve been involved with! PPGs are so important to help get the patient voice heard but also to help support people in your local communities, keep up the brilliant work!
Gill’s month started off with the Grove PPG meeting in Sherborne, where we heard about the Sherborne Good Neighbours scheme offered to the local community in Sherborne. Gill also hosted the Purbeck PPG Leads network, a group of PPG representatives from across the whole Primary Care Network (PCN). These network meetings are invaluable as the members can learn what is going on in other areas of their PCN.
We’ve developed a close working relationship with colleagues at Dorset Council’s digital team in the last few years, working on projects to help increase digital literacy for people in the county and grow the number of people managing their health online. We were invited to be part of a working group, using our experience to help develop digital health services primarily in North Dorset. Although the focus was in North Dorset there was conversation about services throughout Dorset. If you’re looking to increase the number of people managing their health online in your area please get in touch with us.
Poole Central PCN’s business manager invited Gill to the network’s stakeholder meeting where the group discussed how the PCN could engage more closely with and obtain valuable feedback from its patients and carers. Gill also went along to the Corfe Castle PPG meeting where we heard about the plans for the next PPG health talk, the carers’ event in June, and information on Purbeck Parkys, a Parkinsons’ support group that holds regular drop-in sessions. Learn more about the group.
Jim attended several PPG meetings this month around the Weymouth & Portland area. The Cross Road PPG gave a fond farewell to Jane, the practice manager that has worked closely with the group and introduced several new projects over the last year. The Wyke PPG gained a good insight into how consulting staff sessions are managed. The Weymouth & Portland PPG chairs meeting was a packed agenda as usual with updates on the PCN board meeting, a project to encourage healthier lifestyles, and individual PPG updates amongst others.
Sandford PPG invited Gill along to their meeting where the group discussed its exciting plans for a health & wellbeing event at the beginning of April (more of this in April’s blog!). Yetminster Surgery has recently relaunched its PPG and Gill went along to a practice tour, also attended by patients interested in joining the group. It was so good to see the level of enthusiasm in the PPG from both the practice and its patients!
Jim also attended the first Puddletown PPG meeting to be held in their new boardroom. The group discussed how they could help share information about wasted medications, talked about the volunteers needed for several initiatives being planned and heard an update from the befriending initiative being planned with Age UK.
Next, Gill hosted the regular meeting of the Cross PCN PPG representatives. This is always a good meeting as the group is (as the name suggests) made up of PPG members from different PCN areas – some urban and some more rural. It’s really great for the members to hear about areas of Dorset which differ from their own, and they are all able to share their experiences and information.
Jim participated in couple of very different but equally rewarding events in March. He had a PPG stall at a health and wellbeing event in Boscombe, hosted by AECC University College in Bournemouth and Community Action Network (CAN). He made links with a fantastic local social prescribing team and also heard about an online Teams channel run by CAN for organisations in the in the BCP area to get help, ask questions or share information.
He also went to an event hosted by Bournemouth University and Dorset Healthcare but led by people who have experienced homelessness and/or been vulnerably housed. He heard powerful experiences from people that, through various reasons, found themselves homeless, and in many cases living on the streets. It was good to see people across health, social care and the voluntary community sector at the event, listening and talking about ways to support people to help avoid other people facing homelessness in the future. One person Jim met is Debbie, a very talented writer who has poems about her experiences, there’ll be more about Debbie next month!
Gill was delighted to go along to the Canford Heath Wellbeing Event arranged by the surgery with the help and support of the PPG. It was great to talk to patients about the valuable work carried out by PPGs in their own and other areas of Dorset.
Jim has been working with Dorchester Road and Preston Road/Royal Crescent PPGs recently as the practices will be merging in April. He went with Mike and John, the PPG chairs, to a public event to answer any questions people had about the merger. The meeting was standing room only with people interested to hear about the merger. A majority of people were happy and saw the merger as beneficial for both practices. We even recruited new PPG members!
We are regularly engaging with colleagues across the health sector, local authorities and the voluntary community sector to tell people about the great work PPGs do and to get information to share with our groups. As part of this we were invited to speak at the Public Health Dorset team meeting in March. They have team members working across Dorset to help improve people’s health and wellbeing through various different programmes of work. It was a great opportunity to introduce the fantastic work PPGs do across the county and to make contact with our public health colleagues. For more information about Public Health Dorset please visit their website.
Outside of work Jim celebrated Kelly’s birthday with an amazing trip to the Lake District. They also went to Birmingham and spent a couple of lovely days with a friend Kelly’s known since school.
Gill and her husband spent a couple of weekends away (presents for Gill’s recent birthday), one of which was a 1970s weekend at Butlins with friends where they all had a fab and groovy time!
As the evenings get longer and days get warmer, we’re looking forward to helping PPGs with their springtime activities! If you have anything planned or need support please do get in touch.
