July 21, 2026
Minutes
Townhill Medical PPG Champions
Minutes of Meeting held on Tuesday 21st July 2026
Townhill Medical Practice, Caterham
Present
Dr Tom Rustom – GP Partner (Townhill Site PPG lead GP Partner)
Peter Allen – Chair Sue Palmer
Gill Biju Mike Steddy
Mark Bishop Jane Wadsworth
Andrew Davies Peter Woloszynowicz
Apologies
Sharon Hayes
Jenny Humphries
Carol Latham
Jean Mallery
Welcome and introductions
Peter Allen welcomed members to the meeting and thanked everyone for attending. Peter explained that this meeting was to review the Terms of Reference for the PPG and to discuss the results of the patients’ survey kindly collated by Gill.
Update
Dr Rustom said that has been 18 months since the PPG was set up in its current form and it would be helpful to revisit the Terms of Reference. The review was to make the meetings as productive as possible and to look at new initiatives which he hoped would be a two-way process, helping to increase the usage of the NHS app and re-starting a Carers Group which was stopped because of Covid would also be helpful to the practice.
The roles of Chair and Secretary should be filled by vote from the members. The current incumbents both said they were happy to continue if required. Dr Rustom asked that members email any nominations (including self-nominations) to himself or Jacs and, if necessary, there would be a vote. There is also an opportunity to have the role of Vice-Chair.
Action point Email nominations to Dr Rustom or Jacs. Jacs will ask anyone not at the meeting for their opinions.
There was an in-depth discussion of how to make the PPG an effective liaison point between patients and the practice. Opinions were given on how to make this a two-way process. It was felt that at present the PPG didn’t have enough information on what the practice were doing to address concerns raised by patients. Gill offered to send out a questionnaire to enable members to say what they thought was important in finding a way to be able to tell patients what the practice was doing to improve – not necessarily because someone had raised an issue but also proactively. The demographic of the PPG means that it is mostly the Champions who have contact with patients, rather than PPG members. Mike felt that at present it was only possible to listen to patients rather than have any information to impart. A noticeboard has been allocated to the PPG so information can be displayed as another way for patients to see what the practice is doing for them. Gill suggested meeting away from the practice to discuss the ways for the PPG to be useful to the practice.
Suggestions for useful information to be displayed on the board :- List of members, Procedure to join the PPG, Minutes of the most recent meeting, ‘You said – we did’ and possibly how to get in touch with suggestions.
Dr Rustom explained that the practice already has various ways of communicating with patients – the community WhatsApp, the website, the newsletter and the Friends and Family questionnaire sent after each appointment and the new noticeboard. There is also a more formal complaints procedure should that need to be invoked.
There are meetings with staff about ‘lessons learned’ from events that have happened every two months. It was felt that there needs to be a way for Dr Rustom to explain that ‘this was an issue and this is what the practice is doing to address it’ and a process for PPG members to say ‘have you tried this…’ There also needs to be a way for the practice to respond if any suggestions can or cannot be taken up.
Action point Gill to send out a survey as a way of finding out which issues are most important to PPG members so 2 or 3 areas can be focussed on at a time from the results of the patient survey undertaken earlier in the year. Gill will collate the results with Jacs. Dr Rustom will find out if there is a way to add a subjective area to the Friends and Family survey so it becomes more than a tick box exercise.
Action point ‘You said – we did’ will be a useful way of improving communication and the practice will be able to explain which items of concern cannot be altered and why not.
Open forum
DNAs were discussed again. Townhill has the same number as the national average. Dr Rustom said that there needs to be and is some flexibility in the system. There is a procedure for dealing with persistent offenders but that is completely up to the practice to deal with.