Patient participation DES toolkit
Practices can increase their income and more fully involve patients in the development of local services by qualifying for the patient participation directed enhanced service (PP DES).
The purpose of the DES is to incentivise practices to give patients a greater say in the quality and range of services provided by general practice. The PP DES could increase the income of the average practice by £13,000 over two years.
Today only around 40% of practices have a patient group of any kind. The aim of the PP DES is to ensure that all practices involve patients as fully as possible in development of their services.
Some practices are reluctant to try for the DES either because they believe it will take too much work or because they are not sure where to start.
PCC provides a low-cost, straightforward and comprehensive toolkit to simplify the qualification process. It includes all the information a practice needs to establish a patient group, carry out a survey and meet the DES requirements.
“The PCC toolkit provides the whole process in one package. I was very impressed by the ease of use and how much time it saved me.”
Jane Dawes, practice manager, Sturminster Newton Medical Centre
The £300 toolkit includes:
• Concise, complete step by step instructions on setting up a patient representative group (PRG) in line with DH guidance
• A purpose-built online patient survey tool pre-populated with quality-assured questions developed with practice managers
• Details of how to set up a virtual PRG quickly and easily on NHS Networks
• An Excel-based contact tool for managing the PRG and keeping member details separate from other practice systems (important for data protection)
• A template practice leaflet, posters and other materials to help you easily recruit PRG members
• A template report for sharing the results of work with your patient group, including improvements to services offered by your practice.
• A helpdesk to provide support with any aspect of the DES
The toolkit in detail
Step by step guide – A concise document that covers every aspect of compliance with the DES, written by a team which includes one of the authors of the DH guidance and a former DH official responsible for the GP Patient Survey.
Survey tool – Allows you to pick questions relevant to your practice from a bank of pre-assured questions and run the survey in line with the requirements of the DES. Benefits include:
• Time and cost savings in drafting a questionnaire
• Reduced learning curve compared to other options which require you to understand different response options and how do use question logic
• Lower cost – Running a survey using a third-party tool such as Survey Monkey will mean paying almost as much as the entire cost of the PCC toolkit (Survey Monkey is only free for the first ten questions)
• The option to complete the survey on paper for anyone unable to access the online version
• Our questions are closely based on the GP Patient Survey and surveys run by the National Association of Patient Participation (NAPP), which means they are guaranteed to comply with the requirements of the DES
• Automatic collation and presentation of results – These come in two formats: an Excel spreadsheet of the survey data for internal use and a preformatted PDF for publishing on your practice website. We also supply a tool for analysing the results
• Security – The results of your survey are completely secure and cannot be viewed by anyone until you choose to publish them
• Data protection compliant – With no facility for open questions, respondents are prevented from disclosing confidential patient information which could result in a breach of data protection law
Virtual PRG – The toolkit includes instructions for setting up a virtual patient reference group on NHS Networks, allowing you to widen participation without increasing your administration costs. The virtual PRG allows your practice to:
• Invite anybody to join at the click of a button. All you need is their email address
• Ask practice specific questions that may not be suitable for the survey, and get interactive responses
• Explore questions and issues in more depth, including follow-up questions from your patient survey
• Recruit less well represented and harder to reach sections of the population
• Allow patients to comment on your service, suggest changes and improvements and debate local health issues in discussion forums and blogs
• Post news about your practice
• Alert PRG members to local meetings and events
• Share documents and progress reports on the work of the PRG
NHS Networks is free and has an email alert facility which means that members can be kept up to date without having to keep coming back to the site to look for new content.
For a working example, see the Anytown Practice Patient Reference Group.
Contact tool – A simple Excel-based way to record PRG membership. Some members may want to be reassured that their details will not be stored on other practice systems, giving them greater freedom to express their opinions. This tool will also provide the evidence required to demonstrate that the group is representative,
Templates – For recruiting PRG members and reporting results. We have produced print-ready leaflet and posters to encourage patients to sign up as members of the PRG. There is also a reporting template, which allows you to record and share the results of the survey and the service changes agreed with your PRG. All of these documents are simply downloaded from the website.
Further information
The PP DES toolkit is £300 plus VAT. An annual subscription package is also available which includes the toolkit, access to three discounted delegate places at PCC events. The subscription package is £495 plus VAT.
To order either product or for more information, please contact us by email at enquiries@pcc-cic.org.uk or call Peter Bullivant on 07717 300633.