Patient Voice Group

Our Patient Voice Group (PVG) meets to provide a forum for discussion about the practice.

Latest Meeting Minutes

• Date: Thursday 15th January 2026
• Location: Heysham Health Centre
• Chair: Cath McLennan (CM)/Chris Greenwood (CG)
• Minutes: Nerice Jones (NJ)

Introduction of new members

No new members attended, all in attendance signed in on arrival.

Conflicts of interest

none noted.

Agree Minutes of the previous meeting (July 25) & review of actions (not otherwise on agenda)

Meeting minutes agreed.

Actions:

Cath discussed the action sheet and explained that all actions were either completed or ongoing and asked if the group wanted to go through these individually or happy that Cath has/was completing them all. The group never asked for any further discussion on these.

Actions updated prior to the meeting:

• Cath linked in with managers regarding members of the patient advisor team joining the PVG and discussing the PVG with patients as appropriate. – Action completed.
• Cath to link in with third party groups such as Inspire to invite members to the PVG – Cath emailed the link coordinator to ask her to pass this message on at the groups. – Action completed.

Actions completed during the meeting

• Phone statistics to be given to PVG members – this was printed and attached to the handout documents on 16th Januray 2026. - Action completed.
• Proxy access forms to be handed out to PVG – sent out with January meeting minutes – Action completed.
• Invite UC manager to the next meeting – Dan attended the meeting on 16th Januray 2026 – Action completed.
• The new BMG number to be included on PVG documents – This has been added to the minutes in the header section. – Action completed

GP National Survey Results

Patient Voice member (PVM) AW had created a presentation to share with the group to discuss the patient satisfaction survey. AW shared the presentation on screen.

The survey came out last March and AW outlines we will look at where the information came from and 3 areas of the survey: patient access, impressions of last consultation and continuity of care. The survey presents the positive however the learning is in the negative. AW focused on the negative points to enable us to see the learning points.

The survey Is sent Jan-March so looks back to previous April 2024-2025 around 650 letters and emails were sent out, and around 25% responded so around 171 replies.

AW presented a map highlighting practices in the area and how BMG size compares as well as comparing BMG to Barrow PCN as they form a fair comparison on patient numbers, deprivation and demographic. The major difference with Barrow is that BMG is a single practice however Barrow has 8 practices, which can make continuity of care easier and give a more personal touch.

When looking at the 3 topic areas we can see:

The website has improved and has improved the access for patients.

Phone access has still scored as been difficult however BMG stats show great improvements, but the survey stats don’t reflect this. In national figures it still shows BMG score negatively so why do BMG score low on this despite an incline in online access?

GO shared his thoughts on the stats in the survey and asked if the survey allows for comments which AW responded with that the survey doesn’t allow free text and you rate it by choosing one of 5 options.

The figures for ‘Reception less helpful’ has now dropped, we scored lower on this than in previous years, could this be due to receptionists handling the back lash from the triage process and not been able to be as helpful?

If you put together the receptionist figures and the phone stat figures it shows BMG has lowered its average score and scored lower in these areas and this is a worry that the figures are declining in this area.

Patients experience stats:

The figures on the survey show that patients are less satisfied with their experience than previously. It shows that the quality of information is dropping, is this a product of seeing different GPs as they don’t have as good as picture of the patient and their health over the past few years, compared to historic paper notes?

Continuity of care:

The survey says that people are less bonded and don’t say they want to see a particular GP as much as they did before. Continuity of care has dropped only by a small amount, but the figures all seem to be going in this direction, so its important to be aware of the dropping figures.

AW asked the question of what might be causing this: Could this be the changes to practice staffing, reduction in appointment numbers, aftermath of collective action or something else.

Staffing and skill mix

BMG have Fewer partners but more salaried and trainees which means they are doing more supervisions and fewer appointments. It appears that the problem is with funding for the GPs not a shortage of GPs.

Appointment provision

We know there has been a big drop in appointments in the last year, this has gone down 16% it is now lower than it was 3 years ago. Comparing to the national average and Barrows practice BMG offer less appointments.

Aftermath of collective action

Receptionist don’t always have he appointments they need to offer the appointments that have been triaged, patients have lost trust in GP’s ethos of care.

Discussion following the presentation:

Cath explained that although it doesn’t make good reading, the figures are the figures and we recognise that patients like to give anonymous feedback, which is why they have made use of the surveys coming out.

PVM member GO felt that the small sample size (the amount of surveys sent out and the amount that was returned) for a practice of BMG size is unrepresentative and appears unfair. GO shared some personal thoughts following his use of BMG and different clinicians, praising the practice and the clinicians for their efficiency. He stated he could not fault the practice at any point of his patient journey. When using the online system, it has worked well and couldn’t fault the care. Feels the survey is upsetting as not representative of his experience.

PVM member MC agreed it’s a small sample size and that’s not a full representative, but also the expectations of patience is sometimes unrealistic, especially with continuity of care as you can’t see the same doctors but patient also need to take responsibility for their own health and that message needs to be shared with patients. It seems to be a trend, but I think ‘the word on the street’ at the moment is that the practice is getting better. It’s usually the negative experiences that get shared.

PVM member LS used to work in a clinical settings and feels that patients are becoming more demanding of what they want and expect and therefore feel that the patients with positive experiences don’t always share these, however the ones with negative experiences will share this.

Chris gave an update on continuity of care and explained the BMG are working on improving this and have a new system starting, this will be shared in greater detail at the next meeting however hopefully patients may have started to see a difference by then.

GO asked about the texts following appointments, so Cath explained the Friends and Family Test (FFT) and what this looks like, how it works and what Cath does with the comments such as calling the patients to discuss the comments. The figures from the last 3 months FFT were available to see as handouts at the PVG meeting.

HF (BMG) said we know that the FFT show an average and acknowledged that its important we keep receiving data and using the most recent data we receive as we receive it.

Chris (BMG) explained it’s finding a balance between the different data we receive, the reasons behind the data and the results we receive.

MC (ICP) asked AW about the appointments and asked if there was a cross reference to missed appointments – AW explained there is information for this, but he hasn’t used it this time around. AW explained that it’s an average of 4% missed appointments, however he doesn’t feel this is a waste as GPs can use this time to be doing admin tasks. MC explained he feels that by having a missed appointment this is 1 less appointment out of an already small group of appointments that are available which leaves less for the patients who need them.

AW explained that the AI figures that were produced will consider clinician sickness and training etc. HF explained that the AI won’t take into consideration things such as the winter funding which one year BMG received but this year they didn’t.

The appointment figures only show GP appointments VW (BMG) explained that we have a mass of clinicians such as FCPs, ACPs and Dieticians etc so they take on a lot of our appointments. AW counterargues that we are not the only practice who has this set up and a lot of practices use several different clinicians.

MC explains that although we are comparing us to Barrow because the numbers of patience are the same and the clinical mix is the same, BMG set up is different. Barrow operates from 8 practices which will be easier for them to offer continuity of care as they are only going to 1 practice. AW agreed that having 8 practices there is room for competition between the 8 surgeries and that can be a difference in continuity of care stats.

Following the presentation from AW all attendees were offered a copy of the presentation print out and a copy has been attached to the meeting minutes.

Visit from UTC Manager

Intro from clinical manager Dan Cuffe who manages the Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) at Morecambe and works for FCMS (a social enterprise company that runs a lot of urgent care across Lancashire.

UTC is open 8am to 8pm, 365 days a year, they can offer Xray’s, point of care testing which is small samples of blood which can exclude things such DVTs, can also check for things such as bacterial infections or viral infections to determine the need for the appropriate medications.

BMG provides 95% of the patients that are seen in UTC. The UTC was set up to act as a diversion away from the Emergency Department and are equipped to deal with minor injuries, illness and same day health complaints. They run access through 111 and offer a walk-in centre however it is preferred that people attend using he 111 route and they are clinically assessed by doing this. UTC runs on clinical priority but also on booked appointments (which will happen if you get an appointment time with them through 111)

DC explained that in AW presentation he noted that BMGs appointments had dropped by 16% but DC highlighted that UTC’s footfall as increased by 20%. This could be due to the BMA plan (British Medical Association action), patient expectations, (wanting to be seen for things that are minor and could have been dealt with at home with self-care) and also problems accessing their GP practice (some patients will have started the process to get an appointment with their GP but also turn up at UTC to see which one offers them an appointment sooner)

UTC are currently experiencing a bit of a rotating door theme as people are attending the UTC as they can’t get a GP appointment, but the UTC are saying they are not in need of urgent care so signpost back to the GP to access a routine appointment. This can result in patients struggling to access health care. UTC don’t want to have to redirect people but with the volume of patients they will redirect patients to a pharmacy or GP if it’s not an urgent illness or injury.

UTC have the ability to share notes with other health care organisations such as sending over their notes to the GP practice and can bypass the ED as they can direct a patient specifically to the specialist they are needing to be seen by. 111 also have access to BMG records for record sharing so if a BMG patient has tried to access healthcare overnight this will be sent through to BMG.

VW (BMG) explained that in the last meeting a PV member had queried the X-Ray department and what they were able to offer so DC explained. UTC can do X-Rays but they can’t do spinal, hips and pelvis, this is firstly due to the equipment they have and secondly if an injury is suspected in this area the patient is probably unable to walk and will need to be seen at ED.

DC received some great feedback from a PVM member on her experience with the UTC.

DC asked as an action if everyone can remember to go through 111 rather than walking in this would be helpful, and for this message to be relayed the reception team for when they are redirecting patients to UTC.

Visit from Accurx

Introduction from both Annabel (AccuRx finance department) and Matt from ICB.

Matt works as part of the digital team and over the last 18 months has been working on making improvements to patient communication, so has linked in with AccuRx who provides the software that the practice uses. The scheme they are using to improve communications is through RCS messaging. BMG is trialling this scheme and is the first and only provision using RCS in the UK.

RCS is very much like an SMS text messages, it will still appear in the same inbox for your text messages, the look may be different as it will have the name or the logo of the company/sender and you can click on this to gain extra information. (It does differ between Android and Apple)

A question was asked by PV member IL is that does it ask for your NHS number as she had received a message before that to open It you needed to provide your nhs number. Matt explained that usually the NHS won’t ask for this information (upon further discussion it appeared this was a patient portal message and not related to BMG or RCS)

The difference between RCS and SMS is that for it to have any of the NHS branding such as logos etc it has been through validation, so you can be sure that it is a legitimate and a verified source- By using RCS it gives you a level of protection.

A question raised to the group from Annabel was that as RCS opens as a new thread and won’t show the old threads from BMG, would patients find this suspicious as its not grouped with their messages?

If a message is sent from BMG it first goes to the NHS app then if not opened within 1 hour or they don’t have the NHS app the message would be sent as RCS if the patient can’t accept RCS then it will go as a usual SMS message. NHS app messages are free for the practice to use however SMS messages can be expensive, but RCS is cheaper. Usually with SMS messages if they go over a certain number of characters then you get charged per message however RCS once you reach the limit you won’t be charged anymore (the charge is capped). Delivery rate of RCS messages are 60% at the moment. BMG in the last 7 weeks sent 40,000 RCS messages and 58,000 SMS messages. With sent NHS app messages from BMG the amount open in 24 hours is 50% with RCS it is 66% that are opened, We can only know this from the receiver having their read receipts turned on (this could mean the number is higher but patient may not have read receipts on) Already in 7 weeks the figures are 64-68% showing that people are reading messages more frequently.

AW turned this into practice figures and explained this shows that maybe 1 in 4 of our patients are receiving messages – one of the points that AW raised from the survey statistics is that messages are impersonal, the messages don’t include a name of who triaged you, who the appointment is with – Could the messaging system have some accountability and personal touch? This is a downside to switching to messaging. Would RCS messaging change this?

DC discussed the auto response feature on RCS messaging – if you try to reply to a SMS message and it won’t send you can usually tell as you will get an exclamation mark which indicates not delivered, however RCS doesn’t do this so patients if they try to reply may think their message has been sent.

At the moment the name on the RCS message says it comes from BayMedical No Reply, if someone does reply you get a message to say the practice can’t see your response and to contact them.

Matt asking for some feedback on this:

GO didn’t see a problem with this as a lot of emails will have, please don’t reply.

Chris explained that if we allowed responses then it would be unmanageable, BMG don’t have the ability to be able to read these and action them which could cause delay in care.

RCS stands for rich content features, which means this can have features such as buttons i.e a button to cancel appointments or reminders, also buttons that say add to calendar, or get directions and will show a map of where to go – Annabel asked for feedback on the buttons (agreed on add to calendar, location is great – this would be great for the Westgate/Westend mix up) Could a confirm button be on to confirm appointments.

Matt asked the question on the buttons (could you have a add to calendar and confirm button) One button instead of 2 buttons. GO shared then that his partner doesn’t use a phone calendar could this be an argument for having a separate confirm, add to calendar and cancel button.

AW asked where Matt thinks this is going? Matt explained it could change the way that the patient interacts with the practice putting more power back into the hands of the patient. When links get added to messages people use shorteners that anyone can use, RCS can hide this and just add a button, can share files so clinicians don’t always need to send link or website details to get leaflets but could share the whole leaflet, the buttons to aid the patient such as add to calendar, or maps (it could have the potential to share the individual maps which means they can share location maps) Things such as adding paying methods such as paying for parking if you were attending a hospital appointment and needed to use a paid carpark. It’s not for everyone as not everyone is digital enabled or doesn’t want to be and that’s fine but for some people who want to use it then it can make change, make people feel more empowered and give some control back.

As this will not be limited to BMG following the pilot the name Bay Medical no reply wont work, The idea is that the organisation can be uniquely named but the title of sender must include No reply, which leaves a limited number of characters to create a name from (this name needs to be unique to the practice but also create a template for other practices so they are all fitting) The number of characters left is 14 excluding NHS no reply.
AW said having Bay Medical no reply is suggesting we can talk to you, but you can’t talk to us which feeds into the negative experience and doesn’t convey a caring method. Also asked could the option to reply be removed altogether which Matt explained is one of the ideas for development

PV member AH asked could you have a button link to the website?

A few options that I am asking for feedback on for the naming convention or any ideas: Some ideas were:

• Practice Postcode to identify the practice – one BMG postcode but 5 sites? AH suggested phone number, but this is hard to do nationally.
• A short code – won’t mean anything to the patience, could become difficult.

The options that have already been discussed:

• NHS no reply GPY01008
• NHS GP Y01008 no reply
• GP Y01008 NHS no reply
• NHS no reply BMG
• NHS no reply BMG Y01008
• GP Y01008 – without the no reply and won’t include the NHS but it would have the NHS logo.

PVG Feedback – AH said GP NHS and a number that after a while people will get used to this and seeing the number.

PV member SV– thinks having BMG in the name was really important.

HM (BMG) thinks having GP and the number means if you change which practice you are at it will stop any confusion in message threads.

MC explained that the schools use the same code such as primary in this area is 0100, what if schools started to use RCS and use their code – Matt said having the NHS name and logo within the message would help with differentiating.

Matt asked if we used the code with GP and NHS no reply, to then try and familiarise this code and feel comfortable with the code is there any suggestions to socialise this code to build trust. Could it be added to AccuRx such as BMG Y01008. Matt asked if the message in the NHS app could also use the same name and on the website.

SW and Cath said communications could be sent out to patients on the website, tv screens etc to help people understand.

HM asked if we could stamp the messages, this would be AccuRx who could do this on the template, but Matt explained this isn’t possible with RCS.

Matt thanked the group for the feedback that he can then take away and work with to help improve the services.

AOB

Figures requested in last PVG on ratios between routine/urgent care, ACPs+GPs

This information was provided as a handout alongside the other handouts available on the evening.

Lets talk about PVG?

PVG members to have discussions in waiting rooms, could they email their availability(days/times/locations) and we will look at getting a timetable together.

This has been in a previous discussion, and it was discussed that if any PV members wanted to come and speak with patients in the waiting area about the PVG then we could set this up. An email will be circulated to the group during February to create a plan for this if anyone would still like to do this.

Date of next meeting: Thursday 16th April 2026

At York Bridge at 7pm.

Provisional 2026 meeting dates: July 2026 and October 2026