Group Consultations Focus Group Invitation – Wednesday 9 October

Group Consultations to support patients with Chronic Disease

(COPD/asthma/hypertension/CVD/diabetes/stroke)

Creating Time to Care

DATE: 6.00 –  8.00pm Wednesday 9th October 2019 (updated start/finish time)

VENUE: Montgomery House Surgery meeting room

We are inviting patients who have a chronic disease to take part in a Patient Focus Group, to co-design the group consultation process at Montgomery-House Surgery, and to create a shared vision for future chronic disease care

If you would like to take part and to register an interest please send an email to

occg.mhs-groupconsultations@nhs.net

stating your full name, age, mobile number and chronic disease you have.

We will contact you about a week before to confirm those we wish to attend – so we have a balance of ages, chronic diseases etc.

Background

Montgomery House Surgery currently supports:

  • 781 patients with Type-2 Diabetes,
  • 280 patients who have had a stroke
  • 454 patients with coronary heart disease (have had a heart attack)
  • 2,180 patients with high blood pressure
  • 988 patients with Asthma and 313 patients with COPD

Currently all patients are offered an annual review with a health care assistant and/or a nurse. Some patients will then be signposted for further support from their GP.

Patients, HCAs, Nurses and GPs report feeling that these consultations are often rushed and do not allow sufficient time to discuss lifestyle factors for example.

Group consultations are a tried and tested model that help support patients in particular with chronic disease. There is evidence that they increase the time and quality of care received by patients and in particular allow more time for discussions about the evidence for lifestyle changes.

Group consultations;

  • are supported by a facilitator
  • involve up to 15 patients
  • allow up to an hour with a clinician
  • are led by patients
  • are often based on results boards (for example blood pressure or blood sugar results)

We have used group consultations twice a month in a trial phase for patients with Type-2 Diabetes. We have had positive feed-back from both patients and clinicians involved in these groups and have seen some impressive goal achievements. We would like to roll-out group consultations to more patients and to other chronic disease areas.

 

Many thanks,

Dr Ellen Fallows

Partner