July 21, 2026

Agenda

St John’s Family Practice - Patient Participation Group –

Minutes from Meeting on Tuesday 21st July 2026

Present: Chair – Graham Cundy; Malcolm Jeffries; Nicky Yates; Jilly Duan; Nicola Jones.

Practice Manager – Jill Keen

Apologies: Doctor Sanjeev Sekhon due to patient emergency; Tom Allan; Lynn McGrady.

Minutes from last meeting 28/04/2026

April meeting predominantly occupied organising logistics of the Patient Survey w/c 18 May 2026. At CQC partial inspection in April, Practice was rated Good or Outstanding in all areas inspected. There had been a good uptake of Spring vaccinations for the Over 75s of covid and RSV jabs.

St John’s Family Practice Update

The Practice currently has 11,500 patients registered.

Departures: Dr Fiona Okeke has left the practice.

Arrivals: Dr Natalie Wilson is working 4 sessions over 2 days per week.

The practice is currently advertising for a new G.P.

The practice has changed from 10 minute to 15 minute GP appointments but this does mean that fewer appointments are scheduled per week. Would very much like to employ more GPs but the government will not provide more funding.

We are aware that external pharmacies send texts to patients suggesting they do BP checks at that pharmacy, this is because pharmacies get paid for it! Patients are encouraged to check their own blood pressure at the Health Centre and to hand results to Reception to put on their records, so that doctors can see them, this helps GPs monitoring medication renewals effectively and reduces delays where patients request repeat long-term meds and are then distressed because of apparent delays authorising prescriptions because the GP does not have up to date blood test & BP readings.

Prescription requests following Hospital Discharges – Misunderstandings when patients are discharged from hospital with only two weeks medication, think that the Practice will automatically send more, and are then distressed when they have to wait the routine period (minimum three days) for an “emergency” request for more of the new meds. It ought to be made clearer by hospitals that, within a day or two of arriving home, Patients discharged from hospital should contact the Practice to check that the list of medications on their Prescription List is updated so that a new prescription can be requested BY THE PATIENT in the usual way.

Making Appointments

The website is provided by the NHS and the Practice has very little control over how it functions.

For the Practice, the preferred route to request an appointment is online via the NHS App or the NHS website for St John’s Family Practice. People unable to do it online can telephone and Reception will help by filling in the online form on behalf of the patient. In both cases the patient will receive notification of an appointment by text message or telephone call once the practice has “triaged” appropriate level of medical urgency and relevant medical person (GP, HCA/Nurse, Pharmacist). If patients have asked for a telephone call they should explain any problems they might have receiving that call and remember to check their phones for messages/texts.

Practice telephone lines cut off automatically at 1pm for lunchbreak and reopen at 2pm when they can be very busy. There is only one person answering the telephone which can result in queues.

A limited number of “Medically Urgent” appointments are available the same day and where possible are reserved for those who need them most eg frail, elderly. Appointments are triaged by medical need. Sometimes patients can get quicker advice at a pharmacy eg sore throat, earache, or by dialing NHS on 111, or presenting at Woking Community Hospital urgent treatment centre.

Because the government has decided that any patient needing a GP appointment must be seen within two weeks, the Practice complies with that directive but it means that GP appt cannot be booked for a date beyond two weeks. (Also staff GPs must give four weeks’ notice when booking holidays so attempting to book firm appts more than two weeks ahead is unreliable.) However, appointments with a Healthcare Assistant (Practice Nurse) or Practice Pharmacist for routine reviews and vaccinations can be booked more than two weeks ahead if requested.

Patient Survey results – Survey conducted in person at Health Centre 18th to 22nd May 2026

The survey report and results will be placed on the website and the Practice Notice Board.

Vote of thanks to Graham and Malcolm for organising it and for compiling & analysing the results.

Of the results, particularly noticeable is the high score received by the Reception Team for being Very Helpful and the committee asked that a “Well Done” message be passed to Reception Team.

Notes arising from the survey not yet discussed elsewhere:

Q2: Instead of “Urgent Appt” next survey should more clearly ask about “Medically Urgent Appt”.

Requesting appointments and sending messages to the Practice through the St John’s Family Practice section of the NHS website or the NHS App does work for some people but this generates a request form to enable the surgery to triage and then send confirmation of an appointment or action other messages, update patient info. It is not the same as booking a dentist appointment or cinema ticket. Patients who have limited availability due to work or caring responsibilities should explain on the form and all patients remember look out for text or phone messages confirming appointment time allocated.

However, practice staff organising triage to offer same-day appointments should take into account that many patients are unable to hop into a car to attend at short notice, they need to organise travel.

Practice Manager confirmed that the Practice aims to help and she will ensure staff are trained to offer to fill in the online appointment request forms for the patient, while the patient is on the telephone, if the patient says that they do not have internet access/capability. This does mean that the telephone line will be tied up, resulting in longer queuing for other patients.

Proposal for a sign to be placed in Reception and/or Waiting Areas to say that if a patient would like to be shown HOW to use the NHS website/NHS App to request an appointment they can put a note in the SUGGESTIONS BOX with their request and contact details so that a member of the committee or staff can contact them to agree how to help set it up and action. This would be a one-off short training session, not helping every time.

Re-iterated to ask patients to cancel appointments which they can no longer attend please, preferably with enough time for them to be allocated to other people. Cancellation by text (respond to original message) is preferred please if possible. Reminder that telephoning to cancel an appointment in the expectation of immediately being told a time for a replacement GP appointment sadly will not work. So please get the cancellation sent, and then start again.

Query if feasible to conduct next survey via website but this would require patients to actively search for it on website and it is not possible for Practice to gather data in that way with current NHS website. Not viable. Individual interaction with a polite request produces bigger response.

Practice Manager is to ask the Practice staff, including GPs, to look at this year’s survey report and give feedback if they think any questions should be changed/added at the next survey. It is due in 2028 but good to review while fresh in mind.

Other Matters Arising

Car park monitoring

It had been suggested at April meeting that one way the committee might be able to support the Practice would be to patrol the car park to encourage people to only park in the Health Centre Car Park for the duration of their appointment at the Health Centre and for other “visitors” to please park elsewhere. Also to leave the Staff Car Park free for staff only. This is ongoing problem with some people occupying spaces while shopping in St John’s, blocking spaces which patients need.

It was discussed that more prominent signage might help but funding for this would come from Practice funds which are already stretched and better used for spending on patient care.

In the July meeting this was discussed further. Monitoring the car park is not actually within the PPG remit but we are sympathetic to the problem of spaces not being available for patients who have to come by car and cannot walk far, parking in St John’s is always tight.

Due to lack of person-power for active ongoing patrolling, it was decided that regular patrols were unfeasible. However, suggested that when the clinic for influenza and covid vaccinations takes place in October, it might be possible for the same people volunteering to assist with stewarding the vaccination queues to also keep an eye on the car park to discourage unhelpful parking.

Influenza, Covid and RSV vaccinations will be offered to patients from the beginning of October 2026. Eligible patients will be contacted by text message in advance to enable them to book an appointment for the ‘flu jab and the system will automatically alert the administering nurse to offer Covid and RSV jabs at the same appointment to patients who are eligible. Patients registered at this Health Centre are encouraged to have their ‘flu jabs at this Practice and not at a pharmacy elsewhere because the Practice receives NHS funding for vaccinations administered and loses money if vaccinations are wasted.

Patient Participation Group – Patient Liaison Committee. We are looking for a new member to fill a vacancy on the committee. The volunteer must be a patient at this practice, available to attend a daytime quarterly meeting and interested in supporting good interaction and feedback between patients and staff of this Practice. A poster on the notice board gives an email address for contact.

It was decided that the suggestion of newsletter for patients would not be feasible due to inability to distribute effectively (patient confidentiality re email addresses) and few people likely to actively visit the website to read it, a lack of “news” beyond the Minutes already displayed on the board, and lack of person-power to create one and keep it updated.

Next PPG meeting will be on Tuesday 27th October 2026.

Minutes