People, Communities and PCN Partnership Project: Brighton and Hove Workshop
The People, Communities and PCN partnership project, commissioned by NHS Sussex and delivered by Local Healthwatch in Sussex, aims to work with local people to help Primary Care Networks (PCNs) engage better with their local population including minority groups.
Three workshops were organised across Sussex, including one in Brighton and Hove. Local people came together with representatives from PCNs, PPGs (Patient Participation Groups), VCSEs (Voluntary, Community, Social Enterprise organisations) and NHS Sussex to co-produce a resource pack for GP Practices and PCNs about effective patient engagement.
Brighton workshop
Healthwatch Brighton and Hove organised their local event on 25th May 2023 at the Brighthelm Centre. The event was attended by approx. 40 people, with an even spread of representation from PCNs, PPGs, VCSEs and the general public as well as representation from NHS Sussex. Six discussion groups with a mixture of representation, discussed a number of key questions about patient engagement with PCNs. Facilitators made notes during their discussion group.
Next Steps
Following table discussions, all facilitator notes were collated and findings shared with NHS Sussex with the purpose of creating a resource pack for GP Practices and PCNs about patient engagement.
Healthwatch in Sussex will support NHS Sussex in putting the resource pack together, including case studies from Brighton and Hove based PCNs who are already successfully engaging with their population.
The PPG Toolkit
As a result of the workshop findings, a resource pack was put together for the use of Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) across Sussex. This toolkit includes tips on how to effectively work with community members to create an effective PPG and one that is reflective of the full diversity of registered patients.
For more information
To read the toolkit and to read about the event including questions used in the discussion groups, please see the Downloads section below.
For Goldstone Primary Care Network the event was helpful for our new Goldstone PPG chair to make local connections and to start to understand the local health system. For myself it was a chance to see what other PPGs are doing and to learn from them as well as meet and make new contacts.
It was good to be able to share details of the community work that ECB PCN is starting to trial and I made some very useful contacts, talking to other participants.
