Patient Participation Group

Who are the Patient Participation Group (PPG)?

The PPG are an advisory group of patients whose members work voluntarily to help SHP improve GP services for the patient population.

The aim of a PPG is to help foster effective communication between SHP and patient population. 

Why have a PPG?

The delivery of General Practice is evolving under the new NHS Long Term Plan and GP services continue to face a variety of challenging and changing objectives and priorities.

General Practice is the most commonly used point of access in the NHS. 90% of those who use General Practice services will be diagnosed and treated without being referred for further specialist treatment. Current NHS policy therefore aims to improve both access to services locally and patient choice.

As healthcare is being brought closer to the patient, General Practice services are required to extend the scope and availability of services offered and focuses their expertise to improve the utilisation of the available resources. It is therefore important that these resources are used wisely and that the patient perspective is considered. 

How do the PPG get involved?

The PPG provides a forum to work in a variety of areas such as:

• Considering service suggestions which could benefit groups of patients or individuals
• Assisting in evaluating and prioritising demands on clinical resources
• Considering specific operation issues as raised from time to time
• Providing patient perspective
• Determining responses to patient satisfaction questionnaires and formulating suitable action plans to address patient concerns
• Acting as a sounding board for future surgery plans
• Improving communication between SHP and its patient population
• Acting as patient support for specific events such as flu clinics
• Acting as a forum to discuss complaint trends to seek improvements or help determine appropriate courses of action

Find out more with our SHP PPG Information Leaflet - SHP PPG Leaflet - Jan23

Interested in joining?

SHP would like gather as many patients as possible from as broad a spectrum as possible to get a true representative sample. We need younger people, workers, retirees and people with long-term health conditions.

Our PPG can also offer virtual membership whereby you can be contacted online to receive newsletters, surveys and updates where appropriate.

Please click here to express your interest in joining the PPG