Profile of Julie Clark, Chair of Stamford's Patient Participation Group
Julie Clark, the Chair of our Patient Participation Group, has a background in audits and quality control in her profession as an engineer.
She took over the position in January and has implemented more meetings, with an emphasis on health and wellbeing talks.
She is a passionate campaigner for healthcare in the town and is a member of Better Healthcare for Stamford (BH4S). She sees her role as increasing patient engagement and giving patients more opportunity to engage.
Julie said: 'My former role, as a Lead ISO Quality Auditor, was to audit organisations and make recommendations for change and improvement, so I thought those skills would be useful to the PPG. We will be reintroducing drop-in sessions at both surgeries and there is a quarterly PPG patient engagement session. We will still have regular monthly PPG meetings, but our quarterly meetings, where patients are invited to attend, will include talks and presentations by a expert practitioners, like heart specialists, pain management and other specialists for those with long term conditions. We want patients to come and meet the practitioners, as well as the PPG members.
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'We are happy that the practice is now out of special measures and recognise that the CQC has said that significant improvements have been made. I am encouraged by the fact the practice is working on a process around capacity versus demand, which, along with the reintroduction of an online appointment booking system, should help to reduce the demand on the 8am phone calls and allow patients who are able to book online to do so at any time, whilst leaving lines free for those who need to call.
'We have a productive working relationship with surgery management and will continue to work together to ensure that patients are represented and have the knowledge that they need, both to access appropriate services and practitioners, and also to have talks about health-related topics as well as information on how to access the Doctrin online platform. I do also hope that patients will access the minutes of our monthly meetings with the practice, as the issues patients raise with us are discussed at those meetings'.