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.

The PPG's AGM will be on Tuesday 3 February in the Arts Centre ballroom starting at 6pm. 
More details, including an agenda, will be posted on our website and social media in due course. 

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

11 November 2025

1. Present

Paddy Jellen, Joan Richardson, Keith Spurr, Mark Davies, Morag Roberts, Paul Matthews, Judith Juniper, Pamela Todd, Helen Western, Alison Warrick, Claire Culpin, Dr Gavin Cattigan (Partner), Emma Wilson (Patient Services Manager), John Morphy Godber (Chair).

Apologies: Elaine Hooper, Ishobel MacNab.

John began by marking the sad death of Marion Pitt who had been a long-time member of the PPG as well as the town council. Those present held a short silence to remember her.

2. Matters Arising

2.1. Phlebotomy Service

Dr Cattigan said that the proposal to operate an additional service for the practice’s patients had been accepted by the ICB. This will be by appointment and give an additional means to get a blood test though patients could continue to use the “turn up” service. The surgery is not able to serve housebound patients but is hoping, once fully running, to accommodate up to 50 people a day. A small number of appointments will be held back for urgent tests to be done.

2.2. Disappearing Texts

This issue had been raised at the last meeting referring to a problem when clicking on a link in a text message from the surgery the whole message had vanished. However, no evidence had been found of any system problem, and no further instances had arisen.

2.3. Offering the Peterborough A&E Service for Urgent Treatment

Dr Cattigan said this was now routinely mentioned along with others in the area.

2.5. KPIs

John reported that there had been a delay in making progress on defining just what data the PPG needed to better monitor performance. The surgery in fact had been regularly producing a balanced scorecard data sheet bimonthly for the PPG but unfortunately it had not been forwarded to the chair. Dr Cattigan would get as many of these backdated sheets sent to John as soon as possible after which there could be discussions on refining our requirements.

ACTION: Dr Cattigan to send John as many balanced scorecards as possible.

2.6. Your Heart Your Future SHEAC Event

Paddy had attended and said it was well presented with several specialist nurses. Keith said there had been opportunities to demonstrate various techniques related to cardiac events. Unfortunately, there had been traffic problems and parking issues but despite that 50 to 60 people had visited and undertaken physical exercises together in the ballroom.

Emma said that the surgery would promote any events by SHEAC if they received notification. Information would be available in the surgeries and also on Facebook. Social prescribers were also given information to pass on. John commented that the PPG was not being used as a channel of communication, and he hoped in future this could happen.

Keith said that the next event would be all about kidney health sometime in spring next year.

Action: Emma to speak with the Comms team about informing the PPG of any information to be promoted to patients.

2.7. ‘Flu’ Clinics and PPG Leaflet

Members of the committee had supported all the flu clinics and had received overwhelmingly positive comments from patients. Emma said the clinics had gone well and that the surgery delivered 5038 ‘flu’ and 2503 Covid jabs. She thanked the PPG for their support.

Emma said a waiting list of patients who could not make it to one of the October clinics had been created, and this was now being worked through to invite people who had missed out so far.

John thanked Alison for producing the leaflet and Judith said she was grateful to Emma for having placed leaflet holders at both sites.

2.8. Reading Special Notes on Patient Records

An issue had been reported to the PPG that a patient who had a special note on his file saying he should always have a call back whenever he contacted the surgery had not actually received one and had been told by one member of staff that there was no such note on his file.

Dr Cattigan said there were two kinds of alert notices – Routine and urgent, the latter being indicated by red exclamation marks. However, he said that everything still relied on individuals ensuring they looked carefully at files. A message had been given to all staff again emphasising the importance of looking for such alerts and acting on them. He said that there were also alerts around specific issues such as cancer where anyone looking at the record would be alerted to the relevant part of the patient’s history.

2.9. PPG Email Group

There had been a problem about reimbursing the chair for money spent on maintaining our email group which now has 120 members. Claire said she had a template which would help in the creation of an invoice in sterling and Emma said this would certainly be acceptable by the surgery for processing payments in future.

2.10. Effects of Total Triage on Surgery Staff

While the PPG had had overwhelmingly positive responses from patients there was potential concern that the changes may have had different impacts on the staff.

Dr Cattigan said that although there had been some initial pressure on clinicians to keep up with the number of cases coming in, this was settling and Anima was remaining open more reliably. Emma reported that the reception and admin staff were all feeling very positive about it because they no longer had to be involved in trying to make decisions about how to respond to patient enquiries. There had also been no reports recently of patients abusing staff on the phone which meant that morale was higher.

Judith reported that during recent drop-in sessions there had been many very positive comments about how helpful reception staff had been. Emma said she would pass this on to them.

Action: Emma to let reception staff know that the PPG had received many very positive comments about their helpfulness.

Paddy asked about patients who are not online at home and have to rely on the telephone. Emmett said that reception staff were very happy to assist anyone in going through the Anima form and filling it in for them over the phone. For those who could come into the surgery there were iPads which could be used and also taken to a private area for completion with assistance.

Mark asked if the improved figures would be likely to help recruitment. Dr Cattigan said that through soft intelligence and potential recruits reading about the practice in Google Reviews etcetera there could be a positive benefit.

Asked about current vacancies Dr Cattigan said there were two locums and the practice hoped to get 10 partners. There are currently five salaried GPs working. Reception is now up to strength with a new person just being recruited. This had been the highest area for staff turnover over the past eighteen months but there is hope this will also settle down now.

2.11. Anima Forms Going Astray

There were two recent examples of forms sent to Stamford turning up in Corby. Dr Cattigan said that in the past there had been a couple of examples where a patient having been registered at a different surgery had had a form sent to that one rather than to Stamford. However, this had not happened recently.

3. Pharmacy First Initiative

This has been ongoing for a few years, but the Lincolnshire ICB has recently revised interest and asked PPGs to support promoting it. There is a closely defined list of issues which can be dealt with by a pharmacy and all the ones in Stamford are participating. The surgery does promote the idea though hasn’t had a specific recent push. On an individual patient basis, the surgery will mention the initiative as an option and can generate an Anima electronic referral on occasion.

A concern was raised about the sharing of medical records where on the one hand it would be potentially good for pharmacists and other agencies to have access to a patient’s background information to help prevent prescription errors and inappropriate medication being recommended; on the other hand broadening access would give greater opportunity for data breaches.

Dr Cattigan said that currently the GPs are responsible for protecting patient privacy and if records were to be more widely shared this responsibility would have to be devolved elsewhere, as the GP surgeries could not be held responsible for how data was being handled which was beyond their immediate control.

4. Terms of Reference

John reported discussions were ongoing between himself, Keith, and Helen and very shortly he hoped to be able to present a draught document along with a code of conduct protocol to the rest of the committee. Any changes to the existing terms of reference would, of course, have to be approved at the AGM.

5. Dates For 2026

The AGM is due in January, but members felt that ideally the first week in February would be preferable.

John asked Dr Cattigan and Emma to produce suggested dates for next year. We agreed that meetings would continue on a bi-monthly basis as now taking place at the Sheep Market Surgery starting at 5:00 PM.

Dr Cattigan and Emma left the meeting.

In the private session members discussed ideas for the AGM and it was suggested that it might be good to invite individual GPs to make short presentations about any specialist areas in which they are interested. This may reassure patients that if they have a specific issue, for example menopause, mental health etcetera, they could ask to talk to a GP who they knew would be informed and sympathetic. John agreed to put this idea to the surgery.

Action: John to propose GP specialist presentations at the AGM

The meeting ended at 6:30.

John James Morphy Godber
November 18, 2025

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