Patient Participation Group (PPG)

To all Doctors and Staff at Streatham Hill Group Practice,

On behalf of all the patients, their guardians and/or their carers, the Patient Group at Streatham Hill Group Practice would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody at the practice for their courage and resilience during these extremely trying times.

We appreciate that the NHS appears to have been seemingly unprepared for an event of the magnitude of the Covid-19 pandemic and it has left those on the front-line, such as yourselves, having to rapidly react to ever-changing circumstances with an element of near spontaneity that would not have been considered historically.

With Covid-19 getting so much attention, people might be inclined to forget that other complaints and illness still exist and have to be dealt with. A special thanks must be included for the speed at which special protocols have been put in place to cater for all ongoing care, in particular the adoption of technology to streamline the process.

In closing, we would like you to consider that when news coverage shows people in the streets on Thursday evenings at 20:00 showing their appreciation for the efforts of NHS staff, as has happened the last two weeks, that many of us are thinking of you – the Doctors and Staff at Streatham Hill Group Practice.

Thank you all and stay safe.

Kindest regards,

Fraser and Graham
Fraser and Graham Syme
Co-Chairs, Patient Group at Streatham Hill Group Practice

Dear Fellow Patients

Hello again. Your co-chairs, steering committee members, practice doctors and clinicians and all our wonderful administration staff hope that you are keeping both well and healthy.

As we said last time (scroll down below to see our full previous post) “With a new regime comes both new ideas and opportunities”.

You may also recall that we announced that our ‘initial structure’ was not written in stone and that tweaks were likely along the way. So, we are now at the point where we wish to advise you of our first tweak to our initial structure, which we anticipate will serve our Patient Group better going forward.

So, in summary, our official updated ‘Patient Group’ structure at Streatham Hill Group Practice from 09/05/19 will be:

Further Information On Our Updated Structure

All registered patients (and/or their carers) are considered members of the patient body and, as such, part of the Patient Group. Members are permitted to benefit from any of the activities or events organized for the Patient Group. Within the Patient Group, there are two key committees including the Management Committee (currently your Co-Chairs, Fraser and Graham Syme).

The Patient Group Steering Committee assist the Management Committee and help to define and shape the 3 core activities of the Patient Group, which include:

• The Patient Group Forum: this will be an opportunity for members of the Patient Group to meet on a periodic basis with key members of staff and discuss issues affecting their patient experience and be informed of matters, practice-related or broader issues, that will be of relevance to many. It will also be an opportunity for those who participate to influence the direction that the Patient Group core activities take (e.g. helping to suggest topics for Health Education Meetings etc).
• Health Education Meetings (HEMs): these meetings, organized on a periodic basis, will cover a variety of topics and be presented by a guest speaker who will have expertise in that field. These meetings will be open to everyone in the Patient Group.
• The Social Event/Fund Raiser: these events, which initially are likely to mainly be Social Events, will primarily be targeted towards elderly or vulnerable Patient Group members but may also be open to other profiles if the demand exists.

We invite Patient Group members to check in with us to discover how they might be able to contribute to our Steering Committee to help us make the patient experience at Streatham Hill Group Practice even better for everyone concerned. After all, we certainly do not have the monopoly on Good Ideas and many hands (and brains) make light work.

In this respect, you can contact the co-chairs for further information at either:

• Email: [email protected]
• Telephone: 07579 807 830

Alternatively, in the first instance, you may choose to contact our practice, by phoning 0203 829 0800, post, post-it note and/or by simply popping into our practice reception either during office hours or when you next have an appointment, to ask our wonderful reception staff for further details.

We look forward to hearing from you and/or meeting you in due course.

In closing, you may have seen in the press and media that there is a whole new restructuring of our NHS from our Lambeth NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) downwards, which was initially announced back in January 7th 2019 as the NHS 10 Year Plan and was subsequently renamed the NHS Long Term Plan and will affect GP surgeries, hospitals, social care etc.

It is hoped that this will reshape a sustainable NHS for the future but it is very far-reaching indeed. At its core, it appears that the key theme is to get patients to take more responsibility for their own health which, in theory, should cut down the number of appointments at GP surgeries and hospitals.

Already one significant impact is that the NHS have our GP practices starting to work in neighbourhoods (officially known as Primary Care Networks or PCNs) where 6 or so GP practices will end up working together sharing resources going forward.

Thankfully our Streatham Hill Group Practice was involved in trialling in a ‘pilot scheme’ within Lambeth, where one of our doctors was the clinical lead for the pilot scheme in our locality. Long story short, our Management Committee look to be working closely with our Streatham Hill Group Practice’s management to deliver education on the catalogue of changes that will be occurring from July 1st 2019 onwards. Watch this space and our Patient Group’s notice board (just to the left of the ‘appointment electronic sign-in machine’ as you enter Streatham Hill Group Practice) and keep a watchful eye on our Patient Group’s Twitter account over at:

Twitter: @PatientAt

Very last thing, our next PG forum meeting is set for June 12th 2019 and for this occasion, we plan to do something a bit special for you as we will combine a mini Health Education Meeting (HEM) as part of the PG forum meeting. This will give all attendees a first-hand taster of what the Health Education Meetings are all about. After all, you don’t know, what you don’t know, right? Hopefully, that part of our meeting will be an enjoyable discovery experience for all who attend.

We look forward to meeting up with you soonest.

Yours faithfully,

Fraser and Graham Syme
Co-Chairs, Patient Group at Streatham Hill Group Practice
SymeBros of Streatham Hill

Dear Fellow Patients,

Hi there. First off, With a new regime come to both new ideas and opportunities.

One of the many reasons why we (the SymeBros of Streatham Hill) put ourselves forward for these key positions within the Patient Group at Streatham Hill Group Practice, is because over the years both the NHS and Streatham Hill Group Practice have been very good to us in relation to our healthcare and wellbeing and what we now wish to do is effectively return the favour and both give back and pay it forward, to future generations.

Having established our initial core group for our Patient Group Steering Committee, what we now look forward to is developing our Steering Committee to include members from various ethnicities across the spectrum of our patient population at Streatham Hill Group Practice. We encourage inclusiveness and wish to hear from you should you wish to be involved (or have any questions about being involved) as we progress together in our goal to make Streatham Hill Group Practice one of the top practices, if not the premier practice in the borough of Lambeth.

Just in case you weren’t previously aware, we’ve had Patient Groups in one form or another at Streatham Hill Group Practice for approximately the last 8 years. We now look to build on what has gone before us, ideally break new ground and achieve new heights moving forward.

One of the main functions of any Patient Group is meeting up to discuss matters relevant to the practice and the Patient Group and for both parties to carry out subsequent actions. This will continue.

What we also look to do, in the not too distant future, is to start to provide Health Education Seminars for our patient population initially targeting those members of our Patient Group forum (all those folk who used to regularly attend Patient Group meetings at Streatham Hill Group Practice) and develop from there.

So in summary, our new Patient Group structure at Streatham Hill Group Practice from 22/10/18 will be:

1. Co-Chairs
2. Patient Group Steering Committee
3. Patient Group forum
4. Patient population (approx 8,000 of which approx 6,000 are adults aged 18 or over)

Whilst this structure is not written in stone, it is the launchpad from this point forward, which will no doubt be subject to some tweaks and improvements along the way.

If, like us, you have an interest in our practice, are passionate about healthcare, wellbeing, the success of our practice and wish to be involved in some way, please do not hesitate to contact our practice, by phone, post, post-it note and/or by popping into our practice during office hours.

It is worthy of noting that activities such as being community-minded (being part of our Patient Group at Streatham Hill Group Practice) looks good on CVs for job applications, whatever age you are.

We look forward to hearing from you and/or meeting you in due course.

We will be updating our communication options over the coming months to make communications more efficient for the majority of our Patient Group forum.

In closing, we wish to thank the outgoing co-chairs, Miss Bernadette Loderick and Mr Tony Page for their endeavours during their tenure.

We look forward to meeting up with you soonest.

Yours faithfully,

Fraser and Graham Syme
Co-Chairs, Patient Group at Streatham Hill Group Practice
AKA: SymeBros of Streatham Hill