Patient Participation Group

 

Welcome to the Stamford Surgery PPG

  • To act as a liaison between patients, doctors, staff and other health-related organisations
  • to encourage self help
  • to promote patients' needs and interests
  • to support the Practice.

Stamford Surgery PPG is an independent group of volunteers who are all patients.

Stamford Surgery PPG will hope to achieve and expand on those activities to better support the Surgery in the future.

We are currently recruiting for new members, if you would like to be a member please get in touch using our secure online form and you will receive a response as soon as possible.

PPG Group Members

Stamford Surgery PPG is chaired by John Morphy-Godber and the team meets every two months. The group liaises regularly with practice managers in order to raise and understand any issues on behalf of patients.

 

PPG Committee Members

  • Alison Warwick
  • Claire Culpin
  • Elaine Hooper
  • Helen Western
  • Ishobel MacNab
  • John Morphy Godber (Chair)
  • Joan Richardson
  • Judith Juniper
  • Keith Spurr
  • Mark Davies
  • Morag Roberts
  • Paddy Jellen
  • Pamela Todd
  • Paul Matthews

Terms of Reference

1. Definitions

  • Lakeside Healthcare Stamford GP Practice: Referred to as the Practice
  • Patient(s): Patient(s) registered with Lakeside Healthcare Stamford
  • PPG: Patient Participation Group – a management committee comprising some of the Patients.
  • The terms PPG, management committee, and committee all mean the PPG.
  • Annual General Meeting (AGM): An annual meeting of the Patients and the Practice

2. Background
The PPG has been set up as a result of the requirements for patient participation as set out in the NHS England Standard General Medical Services Contract.

An extract from Section 5.2 is shown in Appendix 1. The primary role of the PPG is to follow the general principles set out in Section 5.2 of the contract.

 3. Aims of the PPG

  • To work with the Practice to provide practical support, to obtain and provide feedback from Patients to the Practice and to provide strategic input and advice.
  • To encourage cooperation between the Practice and Patients.
  • To facilitate regular meetings between Patients and the PPG, where the Practice can be invited, providing feedback to the Practice.

4. Purpose of the PPG

  • To give the Practice and Patients the opportunity to discuss topics of mutual interest in their Practice.
  • A forum for Patients and the Practice to improve and develop services within the Practice by co-production.
  • To provide an opportunity for Patients to make positive and constructive suggestions/ideas about the Practice and specific medical conditions.
  • To encourage health education activities within the Practice.
  • To strive to engage all Patients.
  • To involve patient participation in future commissioning of Health Provision.
  • To ensure Patients know how to contact the PPG by e-mail.

5. What the PPG does

  • The PPG is both a communication channel between the Practice and the Patients and a practical group of hands-on volunteers to bring about continuous improvement. Ensuring Patients are aware of how to contact the PPG via e-mail and forward e-mails to the PPG.
  • The PPG facilitates effective relationships between the Practice and Patients by communicating patient experience, feedback and suggestions for improvements. It also validates initiatives from the Practice around proposed procedures and new developments.
  • The PPG works collaboratively and positively with the Practice to actively improve services and facilities for Patients and to act as a sounding board for the Practice on issues affecting Patients.
  • The PPG builds two-way communication and co-operation between the Practice and Patients, other individuals and organisations in healthcare, and the wider community.
  • The PPG acts as a representative group to support the Practice and influence local provision of health and social care.
  • The PPG works with the Practice, in accordance with clauses 5.2.4 and 5.2.5 of the Standard General Medical Services Contract (2019) to ensure reasonable efforts are made to implement improvements which have been agreed between the Practice and the PPG.

6. Online Members Group

  • The PPG may set up and operate an Online Members Group. Patients who would be interested in participating may register their interest and email address via the Practice.
  • The Online Members may be contacted by the PPG periodically to disseminate news items, and to be asked to respond to questions or surveys in order to obtain views on specific matters.

7. PPG Structure and Membership

  • The PPG shall normally not exceed 15 members. The PPG shall appoint individual members when needed, always ensuring that the PPG is as representative of the Patient community as is practicable.
  • Any adult Patient, aged 18 or over, may apply to join the PPG and will become eligible to join as and when vacancies occur, or they may nominate themselves (or are nominated) at each AGM. Removal of a Patient from the Patient list means that he/she ceases to be a member of the PPG.
  • The carer of a Patient is eligible to be a member of the PPG even if the carer is not a patient at the Practice.
  • The PPG will normally meet at least quarterly. In the absence of any apologies or available explanation, any member not attending three consecutive quarterly meetings will be deemed to have retired from the PPG. Meetings are subject to a quorum of one more than half of the members of the PPG. The PPG will extend an invitation to the Practice to attend its meetings. The PPG will also extend an invitation to Patients and carers to attend meetings quarterly to give Patients sufficient opportunity to express issues and concerns with the Practice [and to benefit from presentations given by clinic and wellbeing experts].
  • Minutes of meetings of the PPG will normally be circulated, once accepted as a true record, to the PPG members, the Online Members Group, the Practice website and displayed at the Practice surgeries. Confidential information shall be omitted from the minutes.
  • Members of the PPG shall respect the confidentiality of any information provided that is not in the public domain.
  • Members of the PPG must not use the PPG as a forum for pursuing individual personal complaints or agendas. Members of the PPG must not breach patient confidentiality which is of the utmost importance. Members of the PPG must treat everyone on the PPG fairly, equally and with respect.

8. Annual General Meeting and PPG Officers

  • The Chair of the PPG shall convene the Annual General Meeting of the Patients which shall be open to all Patients and carers. The AGM will be held each year, normally in January, at which PPG members and officers may be elected by the Patients attending the. The date, venue and time shall be published at least one month prior to the meeting by means of a notice in the local media, in the surgery waiting rooms by text message, sent from the practice and on the Practice website.  Agenda, previous AGM minutes and any other documents required for the AGM will be available on the Practice website for Patients to access and/or download prior to the AGM, to allow appropriate time for reading and compiling any requested additions, amendments or nominations.
  • Officers of the PPG may include Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, and if needed, an Education Lead and a Treasurer. Other posts may be created at the AGM on a proposal from the PPG.
  • All PPG member and officer posts will be up for nominations and election at each AGM and the maximum terms for officers will be three years.
  • Nominations for Officer posts which are vacant or where the Officer is no longer eligible for re-election shall be made and seconded in writing to the Chair or Secretary not less than 14 days before the AGM. Members and officers will be elected by an open vote at the AGM
  • Alterations to these Terms of Reference must be proposed in writing to the Chair or Secretary not less than 14 days before the AGM and must be approved at the AGM. You may contact the PPG Chair or Secretary using our secure online form

National Association for Patient Participation

The national body giving guidance and support to local PPGs.

Meeting Minutes

If you require a copy of older meeting minutes please contact us via our secure online form

Latest Meeting Minutes

9 April 2026

1. Present

Pamela Todd, Judith Juniper, Paddy Jelen, Dr Gavin Cattigan, Emma Wilson, John Morphy Godber (chair)

Apologies: Joan Richardson, Mark Davies, Paul Matthews, Claire Culpin, Helen Western, Keith Spurr, Ishobel MacNab, Alison Warrick.

2. Minutes From November and Matters Arising

The minutes were accepted.

John asked if there was any update on the Phlebotomy service. Dr Cattigan said that a phlebotomist was currently being on-boarded in the practise. Nurses had so far undertaken the clinics in addition to their existing duties. There is currently a three week wait for appointments. Judith reported that patients at our drop-in sessions had been very positive about having the option now to book an actual appointment for a blood test. Dr Cattigan said he hoped that the waiting list would reduce as soon as the new member of staff had completed her initial training.

At the November meeting John had asked whether the surgery could routinely notify him of any communications that we might share through the PPG email group. Emma said that she had a meeting coming up in the next week with the communications team and would raise this question.

John gave his apologies that the terms of reference for the PPG had not yet been updated and published though he, Keith and Helen had worked on them and come up with a potential new version which had only a few amendments.

3. Review of the 2026 AGM

At its special meeting on 5th March the PPG had agreed some proposals for Next year’s AGM which were contained in the “Extra Meeting minutes previously circulated. The PPG was keen however to understand how the surgery felt about the AGM.

Dr Cattigan said the surgery had found that the PPG AGMS had been improving year by year and they were quite happy with them. He particularly welcomed the involvement of speakers from other organisations and thought the surgery could find a way of making the brief presentations from individual clinicians a little “slicker”.

4. Patient Engagement Sessions

Emma explained that the surgery had been thinking about holding sessions where patients could come along to get information and share experiences around specific conditions and health topics. Representatives of other local organisations would also be welcome. She mentioned MindSpace, Cancer and Diabetes support. She Asked the PPG if we could get feedback from patients on the kind of topics they might like to see covered in such sessions and also for committee members to help out. Everything is still very much in the planning stage so there is plenty of scope to influence how things develop.

Emma said she hoped that Joan and Keith may both wish to hold engagement sessions in the surgery for cancer and Diabetes respectively. John would contact them specifically to What they thought.

In addition, the surgery wishes to create some green space as well being or mindfulness areas at each surgery site. There is current work with MindSpace to look at how these might be created. MindSpace have an arrangement with Waitrose for receiving unsold bulbs which could be used. PPG members expressed an interest in joining in and doing a bit of gardening.

John asked about the possibility of the surgery having leaflet dispensers for information from local groups. Emma said that it wasn’t appropriate to have leaflets brought in for distribution but any information about local services could be given to Michelle for laminating and displaying on the information boards in the surgery.

Paddy asked if the notice boards were updated regularly and said that sometimes information she had brought in had been removed. Emma said the notice boards

were regularly refreshed and Dr Cattigan said that it would probably be a good idea to ensure that information relating to specific organisations which would have a long life should be just left in place.

Judith mentioned a dementia group and Emma asked her to send her any relevant information about that group which could be displayed in the surgery. We also thought that dementia would make a very good topic for an engagement session as it affects so many people directly and indirectly.

5. Priorities for 2026

At the PPG Extra Meeting on 5 March Several issues had been identified on which the PPG would like to work with the surgery to influence their development.

5.1. Anima

The PPG receives a steady stream of complaints from patients who have difficulty finding their way around Anima. One common issue is not being able to fit their symptoms into any of the designed questionnaires and not being able to find the text box where patients can report their issue in their own words. Dr Cattigan said that the practise is not able to make detailed changes in wording and layout; though it can choose which of the prescribed questionnaires are included in our version of Anima. We agreed that it would be very useful to Discover precisely what difficulties people are having. This could be achieved by observing someone using Anima and seeing just where things go wrong. If this process reveals some shared issues then these could be addressed. It was also suggested that members of the PPG could themselves complete a test anima and also the staff in the practise could be encouraged to do it themselves especially those who would not normally use Anima regularly.

Emma confirmed that the surgery has “digital Champions”. Patients can come to reception and ask to speak to one of those and get assistance with anima

5.2. Communications

Issues included the following:

People who are comfortable only with using a phone for emergencies or limited family contacts

People who have difficulty reading and responding to text messages

Dr Cattigan explained that it was important to ensure that the primary phone number listed on a patient’s record was the best for communication even where this was not that of the patient themselves. A patient can complete a form designating someone else as being able to speak on their behalf. It was also possible on this form to request that text messages not be used. Once this was formally registered the system would prevent text messages being sent to that number.

We agreed that it is important for the PPG to communicate this information to patients through our drop-ins and email group.

John said that in future he would ensure that a monthly compilation report on drop-ins would be sent to Emma being as specific as possible about common issues that had arisen so the surgery could review and take remedial action if possible.

5.3. Drop Ins

John thanked members of the committee who had done drop-ins and said that they were the most effective way of hearing and understanding issues that patients have. Although they are not a scientific survey they do produce very useful anecdotal information. Emma confirmed that drop-ins are extremely useful for the surgery and hope that PPG would be able to continue doing them. Judith commented that the drop-ins had got much easier since the introduction of total triage and there were now far fewer frustrations from patients. Many had commented on how helpful reception staff are Whereas previously they were seen as a kind of barrier.

5.4. KPIs and Data

Mark had produced a proposal and said he would be happy to do a regular report using the data provided by the surgery. Dr Cattigan said that currently the PPG just gets a global number for appointments which doesn’t differentiate between GPS, nurse practitioners and any other clinicians. A more detailed breakdown could be made available or indeed only specific categories could be included. It depends on what the PPG wants and indeed what use could be made of the numbers once received.

There had been a request to report the number of hours that Anima is closed. Dr Cattigan reminded the committee that following a government decision It is not possible to close the online system between 8 AM and 6:30 PM. The surgery does advise patients that from 4:00 PM onwards only non urgent requests would be processed because after that time it would be unlikely that anything urgent could be responded to on the same day

John said he would report back to Mark and then put Mark and Doctor Cattigan in direct contact.

5.5. St Mary’s

John said that the PPG wished this to remain as a regular item so that we could get reports of the progress of the repair and improvement work. A new lease has been signed for the next five years. At the moment quotations are being sought for a whole range of building work and Dr Cattigan said he hoped things should start to move in the next three to five months.

6. Any News from the Surgery?

Dr Cattigan reported that Dr Matilda Dafimu had just joined as a new partner. She has been working at the surgery but is currently in an induction programme Specifically about the partnership. He also said that the practise is keen to recruit more partners, but recruitment has been temporarily suspended as uptake had been very limited. He suspected this may have something to do with the current difficulties between the government and the BMA which is creating some uncertainty possibly among newly qualified GPS about the future of the partnership model. He hoped this would be resolved very soon.

7. AOB

Judith asked if the surgery needed support from the PPG for the latest round of Covid clinics. Emma said these were much smaller than the autumn ones and there was currently no need four committee members to attend

Paddy asked about shingles vaccination as some people have had only one and others have had a booster. Doctor Cattigan reported that the nature of the vaccine had changed and that now a booster is given six months after the initial injection. This does not affect people who received the previous single shot vaccination.

The meeting ended at 5:50.

Dates for future meetings:

  • July - Tuesday 21st July
  • September - Thursday 10th September
  • November - Tuesday 10th November.

Latest AGM Meeting Minutes

2024

  1. Welcome by PPG Chair, John James Morphy Godber  (3 mins)
  2. Minutes of AGM 2024 (5 mins)
  3. Review of 2024 by PPG Chair (15 mins)
  4. Presentation by Stamford Surgery and Lakeside Group (20 mins)
  5. Questions from the audience (15 mins)
  6. Councillor Richard Cleaver - Observations on Health Services (10 mins)
  7. Presentation by the Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board (ICB)
  8. Questions from the audience (20 mins).
  9. PPG Committee: (5 mins)

To ratify new committee members who have joined since the 2024 AGM

To approve Committee Officers. 

Meeting to close by 8pm

1. Welcome by PPG Chair - John James Morphy Godber

Introduction to the meeting, housekeeping. (3 mins)

2. Minutes of AGM 2024

To agree as correct and take any matters arising. (5 mins)

3. Review of 2024 by PPG Chair (15 mins)

To include outlining the key priorities for 2025 based on our compilation of performance data for the local surgery where issues around appointments and communications have been found to be below acceptable levels.

4. Presentation by Stamford Surgery and Lakeside Group

To include addressing the PPGs priority issues; reporting on achievements and progress (20 mins)

The Questions sent to the surgery by the PPG for this meeting are:

  1. What is the nature of the contractual relationship between the Stamford surgery and the Lakeside group? What is decided and managed locally and in which areas does Stamford rely on Lakeside decision-making? Who makes the decisions both locally and in Lakeside?
  2. We have identified the areas of greatest concern to the PPG committee. We would like the monitoring and improvement of these to be the main focus of the committee’s work to support the surgery in 2025. We would greatly appreciate your thoughts and input at the AGM.  The biggest issue seems to be the availability of appointments and the surgery’s capacity to meet demand from patients.

Our questions arising:

Phone service:

  • How is the practice monitoring the phone service? 
  • What is the practice doing to improve the phone service? 
  • How can we learn from other practices in the Lakeside Group such as Bourne and Yaxley where 53 and 79% of patients find it easy to get in contact by phone?
  • Can we learn anything from other local surgeries such as Empingham and Wansford,  who also have extremely good phone communications (68% and 88% respectively  of patients find it easy to contact these surgeries by phone)?

Online Services:

  • How is the practice monitoring the on-line services?
  • What is being done to improve things? 

What is the actual Lakeside Stamford GP capacity? - i.e. number of FTE GPs and potential appointments per month?

  • What is the actual demand for appointments in Stamford? 
  • Does the practice think it has a capacity problem? How is practice monitoring this and what steps are/have been taken? 
  • How can the PPG help?

5. Questions from the Audience (15 mins)

6. Councillor Richard Cleaver Observations on Health Services (10 mins)

7. Presentation by the Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board (ICB)

  • To include What is the ICB and how does it relate to health services in Stamford.
  • Update on the ICB’s engagement on the future of Stamford services in the light of the likely significant increase in our population. (20 mins)

8. Questions from the Audience (20 mins).

9. PPG Committee

  • To ratify new committee members who have joined since the 2024 AGM 
  • To approve Committee Officers. (5 mins)

Meeting to Close by 8pm.

PPG Contact

We now have an email group which you can join to hear from us and make comments on the services our surgery offers. We won't drown you in emails but will try to keep you up to date with news relevant to health in Stamford. To get email updates please contact the patient group using this form below.

Contact the PPG