Rye Medical Centre has informed Rye News that, following the necessary Covid-19 related postponement of last year’s event, it will be holding the 2021 Patients Participation Group (PPG) annual general meeting on Wednesday, November 17 at 6:30pm for 7pm at the Hub on Rye Hill, adjacent to the medical centre.
Julie Dockerill, the chair of the PPG explained to Rye News that patients participation groups form a vital back-up function at most GP practices across the country and were created nationally under a contractual requirement for all English based practices that took effect in 2004. They usually comprise of around a dozen volunteer patients alongside the practice manager and one or more GPs, and that the primary aim is to encourage and strengthen the relationship between patients and the practice.
Julie told us that the Rye practice’s PPG fulfils a variety of positive roles in both advising the practice of the patients’ perspective and helping to promote health matters by means of wider communication with patients’ and assisting in the organising of health promotion events.
The PPG has normally met on at least four occasions a year, but that this pattern has, along with so many other things, been interrupted due to the coronavirus pandemic and the understandable pressures on the practice including the need to strictly observe social distancing.
Due to a variety of reasons – including retirements at the completion of the statutory period of office – the AGM will see an almost unprecedented requirement to recruit up to six new members from across the footprint served by the medical centre of Rye and its surrounding villages. Julie said that both she and the clinicians at the practice were eager to see as representative a sample of the practice’s demographic as possible in terms of age, experience, and gender to ensure the PPG remains both relevant and representative of the community it serves.
Julie said that “Patients are invited to nominate either themselves or other potential new members from among their fellow patients – having first sought the candidate’s permission of course!”
“As when I last spoke to Rye News about the PPG I remain confident that new members will find the work of the PPG both interesting and worthwhile. No one need feel excluded in any way from this, and we welcome all applicants, who are invited to email their details, including ideally a daytime telephone number, to jdrmc_ppg@btinternet.com or make a written application to Rye Medical Centre PPG, Kiln Drive, Rye TN31 7SQ”
“Both the staff at the practice and my fellow committee members hope and trust that the work of the PPG can continue to fulfil its important function at the heart of the work of the medical centre in ensuring that the patient base is as well informed as possible and we very much look forward to welcoming new members and, indeed, as many patients as possible at the forthcoming AGM”
Image Credits: Richard Byham .
As Chairman of the Northiam and Broadoak PPG I take this opportunity to wish Julie Dockerill well for the AGM.
Patient Participation groups are an important connection between our doctors and public. I know how much we have all appreciated the work and care our doctors have given in recent times.
Ian Jenkins, Chair, Northiam and Broadoak PPG.