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Join your local Patient Participation Group

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Join your local Patient Participation Group and help the NHS shape services for your community

Are you interested in influencing how your GP practice works and about the health services it delivers? Your practice patient participation group (PPG) could be for you. 

A PPG is a group of patients, carers and GP practice staff who meet to discuss practice issues and patient experience to help improve the service.

PPGs work in partnership with their GP practice and are vital in ensuring that the patient voice is heard. PPGs have an increasingly important role to play in helping to give patients a say in the way services are delivered to best meet their needs, and the needs of the local community.  

By becoming a member of your local PPG you will be helping to support your local NHS services and community by being a critical friend to your practice and you could be:

  • Helping them communicate to patients how recent changes to the NHS will affect services provided 
  • Advising the practice on the patient perspective 
  • Involved in organising health promotion events
  • Helping the practice decide on overall service priorities
  • Helping to carry out research into the views of service users and carers

Northumberland has 40 member practices across the county, some with established PPGs delivering their own community health improvement initiatives such as book clubs, walking groups and knit and natter groups and asking patients and carers their views on using services through surveys and meetings. Groups work in different ways; some meet in person, others communicate with their practice online – all are keen to welcome and involve new members.

If you are interested in joining your local PPG, please contact your GP Practice Manager or NHS Northumberland Clinical Commissioning Group, Communications and Engagement Team by emailing: lesley.tweddell@nhs.net who will help advise you about your nearest PPG.

Collingwood Medical Group

Collingwood Medical Group

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Update: 14 August 2018

Now that letters have been sent and patients have information about the closure of Collingwood Medical Group, we would like to hear from anyone who has had any problems registering with a new practice, or any other issues, to get in touch.

 

Patients of Collingwood Medical Group in Blyth have been informed that the current provider of the practice is unable to continue providing GP services after 30 November 2018. After careful consideration of all the available options, Northumberland Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has reluctantly decided to close the practice permanently. It has issued patients with a list of alternative practices in the area is asking them to begin thinking about registering with an another practice in the coming months.

Three drop-in meetings have been arranged for any patients who would like to stop by for a short time to gain further information or raise any concerns in person. These sessions will be attended by the CCG alongside representatives from NHS England, Collingwood Medical Group, Healthwatch Northumberland and the Patient Advice and Liaison Service.

They are taking place at the following times:

• Wednesday 4 July: 1.00pm – 3.00pm, Blyth Community Enterprise Centre, Ridley Street, Blyth NE24 3AG

• Wednesday 11 July: 2.00pm – 4.00pm, Briardale Community Centre, Briardale Road, Blyth NE24 5AN

• Monday 16 July: 4.30pm – 6.30pm, Blyth Community Enterprise Centre, Ridley Street, Blyth NE24 3AG

More detailed information about practices is available on the NHS Choices website. You can also read about Patient Choice of GP Practices here.

Man at GP reception

Patient choice of GP Practices

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Since 5 January 2015, all GP practices in England have been free to register new patients who live outside their practice boundary area.

This means you can register with a GP practice somewhere that’s more convenient for you, such as a practice near your work or closer to your children’s schools. These arrangements are voluntary for GP practices. If the practice has no capacity at the time, or feels it is not clinically appropriate or practical for you to be registered so far away from home, they can still refuse registration. The practice should explain to you their reason for refusing your registration.

How to register with a GP practice further away

You may wish to join a GP near work or re-register with your old GP following a move. There are a few things to consider:

  • Research your options in the area you want to register with, so you choose a practice that is right for you.
  • Compare GP surgeries according to facilities, services or performance before you decide. Ask friends, relatives and others you trust for their thoughts and recommendations.
  • Contact the practice and ask if it is accepting registrations from out-of-area patients.
  • If the practice is accepting registrations, ask for a registration form.

The practice will decide, following a review of your completed registration form, whether to accept you as a regular patient or accept you without home visiting duties (if it is clinically appropriate and practical for you to be registered away from home).

Because of the greater distance to your home, the GP you register with is under no obligation to offer you a home visit. If you are not well enough to go to the practice yourself, then other arrangements will be made. NHS England (the body responsible for buying GP services) ensures that there is access to a service either near your home or at home (if needed). When you register with a practice further away from home, you will be given information about what you should do in those circumstances.

However, if you are too ill to go to the practice in person, or the practice is unable to help you over the phone, call NHS 111. The NHS 111 service can tell you about access to local services or, where necessary, arrange a home visit.

For more information please visit NHS Choices.