Dear Fairlight Residents,
As many of you know, at the beginning of 2024, there was a building number of complaints about Hill Surgery; in response, we established The Hill Surgery Action Group (HSAG), and two committee members also joined the now-dissolved Patient Participation Group (PPG) as committee members. Much of the disruption stemmed from the merger, the disastrous computer transition, and a shift to an outsourced call centre. The HSAG committee met with the NHS Integrated Care Board (ICB) several times, and they took the complaints seriously enough to implement an action plan for the surgery. In fairness, much of this has been followed and executed. In addition, the surgery was already working with the CQC recommendations, which they were obliged to correct to improve their CQC rating from the Harold Road Special Measures rating issued before the merger.
The HSAG committee is considering disbanding the group. Still, we would like to assess the current situation to determine if the surgery has gotten back on track before we make that decision. Since the PPG’s dissolution and the transition to a newsletter-based patient participation platform, we have not held face-to-face meetings to discuss patient concerns as the surgery did not feel our input was representative of the entire patient base, a decision we never understood but had to accept. However, we believe that most of the initial dissatisfaction has been addressed; ultimately, they listened and took corrective action, which was always our objective – service improvement. Therefore, we would like to survey patients and HSAG members to see if they feel there has been sufficient improvement for us to step down.
Please take a few minutes to complete the survey. The QR code attached will take you to an online survey we have added to our website. Simply open and point your smart phone camera at it and click the link. You can also click here on the homepage to go straight to the page. Scroll down to the survey. Finally, if you prefer to go via the website, go to www.hsag.org.uk and scroll down, where you will also find all the meeting notes, particularly those we took at the final PPG meeting, which proved significantly eventful for all concerned!
The survey is anonymous. We will publish the findings in a few weeks and share them with the surgery team.
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a healthy New Year!
Kind regards,
Maxine Green, on behalf of The Hill Surgery Action Group (HSAG)
Fernbank, Shepherds Way.