Patient Participation Group

Meeting Notes and Action Points of Thursday, 28th November 2024

PPG meeting

AS briefly went over the main points of the PPG meeting held on 25 October at the surgery:

• Annual patient survey results
• NHS App
• Next meeting to be in January

NHS App

Use of the NHS App by Half Penny Steps Health Centre surgery is lower than most of the neighbouring practices.  The app can be used for booking and cancelling appointments, requesting repeat prescriptions, checking test results, and looking at the patient record.

One of the key benefits for patients is when requesting repeat prescriptions, it is estimated to save them 18 minutes compared to other methods.  For the practice, it is estimated to save 3 minutes per request.
There is a website, the NHS APP Dashboard, that shows at practice level how many patients have downloaded the app, and how many use it for appointments and prescriptions.  However, this dashboard is only available to NHS staff.  It does show that use of the App by HPS patients has been gradually increasing.

Adili suggested that patient need help using the app for the first time, as those who have used tend to carry on doing so as it makes life easier for them.  A couple of medical students at the surgery have been working on how to help patients with the App, and they have set up some drop-in sessions, but we are awaiting feedback about how well these sessions have been received.

If they turn out to have been successful in creating more regular NHS App users, then the surgery should consider having regular staff-led drop in sessions.  A good measure of how successful the practice is being at increasing use of the NHS App would be to monitor how many repeat prescriptions are being requested each month.