Blog post: PPG Awareness Week 2024.
Being Chair of the PPG has led me in many directions to help and empower patients in our community and in rural and coastal research that will directly help us.
I am on the Boston Primary Care Network Board. Lincolnshire ICB PPG Countywide Council. NHS England PPG Champions Lincolnshire ICB Co-production Pain Management Committee.
I was made an Affiliate of Lincoln International Institute for Rural Health last year for the work I have been doing and continue to do.
What an amazing year we have had. We had an excellent recruitment campaign for PPG Awareness Week, with over 33 new members, covering not only Swineshead but the area the surgery facilitates in rural Lincolnshire a large and sparce area.
As Chair I have often in the past helped other PPG’s throughout the county to grow their membership and nurture if they are new to the work of a PPG.
Our July 2023 meeting with all our new PPG Members was an exciting start to a very productive year, every seat was taken in our surgery conference room and extra chairs had to be bought in.
We used the iceberg analogy to show what happens above and below the surface in a PPG, from a patient on the ground point of view and from the other side of the desk with the Practice and how it is managed. I, as Chair, and the Practice Manager did a double act to help and educate what happens from both our points of view. This was received very well by everyone.
We now have a waiting list for new members.
We have a dedicated service that delivers medication to housebound patients, and we were pleased to invest in this service, as the delivery van travels many miles to some pretty isolated places for some 250+ patients.
We designed a new PPG banner for our surgery reception and to take to events out in the community.
We held our first new PPG Members meet and greet in the surgery waiting room in December with mince pies and refreshments. We also had a raffle for 4 luxury Christmas Hampers which raised over £400. It was well attended and our new banner looked amazing.
Before our formal meeting, we have a speaker at each meeting on Social Prescribing; One You Lincolnshire; Cancer Care; Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board; Lincolnshire Connect; Lincolnshire Fire Service – Hoarding. PPG Members can attend face to face or via Microsoft Teams.
Before I was PPG Chair, I have continued my work I started back in November 2022 with Lincoln International Institute for Rural Health, this started back in November 2022 when I was approached by the Lincolnshire ICB to write a lay summary for the Lincoln International Institute for Rural Health. This was the start of my journey working with them.
So being on the PPG can lead you in many interesting and valuable directions, with lived in experience, as the voice of patients on the ground.
The Institute was launched in 2020 to lead research within the field of place-based population health, addressing the unique and contextual health challenges of dispersed rural communities around the world, and the underrepresentation of rural people in health and social care research.
Myself and the team have spent the last year studying the inequalities in living and working in a rural and coastal area of Lincolnshire. We have developed a toolkit to help people in the community. This will be launched in the next two months.
Interest in the toolkit has been across the country and into Europe, and we are very excited for its roll out. We hope to present it at the 13th European Rural and Isolated Practitioners Association(EURIPA) Rural Health Forum, which is being hosted by the Lincoln International Institute for Rural Health, University of Lincoln for the first time. It runs from the 20th June to 22nd June 2024. The theme: Tackling Health Inequalities in Rural and Remote Communities.
I am also working with the institute on a Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Lung Cancer Study of people living with lung cancer and their carers/supporters in rural and coastal areas. I am on the local and national steering groups, in which we had 3 recent workshops with Oncologists and Macmillan Nurses. This enabled them to gather valuable data from patients with lung cancer and their carers/supporters. This is the first time carers/supporters of the patients have been listened to.
We aim to develop a tool to help patients and Carers/ Supporters from Diagnosis onwards that is easily understandable and accessible.
On the 12th June 2024, we are hosting a workshop revolving around CRUK Lung Cancer Study, at the Lincoln Cancer Summit at the Medical School (the home of Lincoln International Institute for Rural Health). There will be eminent speakers from abroad and locally. Through my work with the PPG and the institute I have been invited to attend and be part of this workshop.
I am also working with the Co-production team for pain management with the Lincolnshire ICB who have asked for people with lived in experience of chronic pain to come onboard. There appear to be no pain clinics face-to-face anymore, but the ICB have been doing virtual pain workshops that are very popular and we need to develop this.
I also helped to put together a bid for funding for looking at Palliative care in Rural and Coastal areas of Lincolnshire from a PPIE perspective.
Joining your PPG can be life changing in so many ways. We can use our lived-in experience as patients to help others in our surgery and community. Plus, our PPG members are really friendly and its great to get together for meetings and create events out in the community.
We joined together to facilitate an outreach clinic with the Primary Care Network team in our local church, for a mini check-up, that was very well attended in late January 2024. Again, being part of the PPG can be so beneficial in helping patients in our communities.
Ava Harding-Bell – Chair Swineshead Medical Group
Email: swinesheadppg@yahoo.com.