Denton Village Surgery is a rural practice facing the challenge of serving over 15 villages.
Denton Surgery Patients’ Group (DSPG) Is a group of volunteers whose aim is to improve the flow of information between the practice and its patients arriving at a beneficial understanding of how the Practice works the growing pressures imposed by the NHS, and the unprecedented demand since the Covid pandemic.
Your GP practice has continued to care for patients by adapting their way of working to ensure that you could continue to receive the care you needed and want to hear about the patient experience through the DSPG.
Changes such as telephone and online triage were brought in at the start of Covid not only to protect patients, but also to mitigate risk and protect the staff as much as was possible, thereby ensuring that staff were able to come into work throughout this pandemic. Whilst accessing your surgery may have been and may continue to be in a different way, they have always been open and have been seeing patients that needed to be seen. Please remember too that they are trying their best to serve you safely and ensure your health is looked after, they are often working far longer hours than is evident.
As part of our work to respond to and support patients in a non-clinical way the DSPG has set up a Voluntary Patient Transport Scheme to enable patients without transport to access the surgery, clinics, and hospitals. This is a service much in demand and reflects the rural aspect of our surgery catchment area.
The DSPG is part of the Patient Participation programme and whilst each group determines its own activities according to the needs of the community and the practice itself, we hope to:
- Contribute to the continuous improvement of services
- Foster improved communication between the practice and its patients
- Help patients to take more responsibility for their health
- Provide practical support and help to implement change
- Build a relationship between the practice and its patients that breaks down barriers and share information can develop to influence the wider NHS
The DSPG a crucial way of harnessing the voice of the patient in primary care, and have much to contribute to improving the quality of care in a rural community such as:
- Organising health promotion events
- Communicating with the wider patient body
- Running volunteer services and support groups to meet local needs
- Carrying out research into the views of those who use the practice (and their carers)
- Influencing the practice or the wider NHS to improve commissioning
Below are the minutes of the AGM and the last committee meeting which can be read online or downloaded
AGM Minutes October 2022 committee copy