PATIENT Participation Groups have been developed well in the Swindon area, with majority of practices now having such a group.

Last year Swindon GP practices were offered £241,000 by NHS Swindon to engage with their patients and 18 practices across the town took advantage of the funding and have now developed PPGs.

The practices have developed the groups either online or in the flesh and have produced surveys and published the results.

The groups discuss a range of issues, including the booking of appointments, patient experiences and how accessible the surgery is.

However, not all practices have taken up the offer of £1.10 for every patient within the practice.

Taw Hill Medical Practice and Moredon Medical Centre are among those who didn’t sign up for the payment, or signed up but did not get going within a year.

If they had, they would have been given more than £10,000 and heard some patient opinion.

Val Vaughan a member of Swindon LINk steering group, which aims to get the public involved in health care, said: “I am surprised that both the chair (Dr Peter Crouch) and vice chair of the Clinical Commissioning Group (Dr Peter Mack) have no Patient Participation Group at their practices, especially as they are commissioning services.

“It would be a useful tool for them to find out opinions of services provided for patients and how these could improve throughout the borough.”

Other practices which did not sign up for payment for a PPG were Eldene Health Centre, Marlborough Road Surgery and Sparcells Surgery.

Cornerstone Practice, Park Lane Practice and Ridge Green Surgery were among those surgeries who signed up for payment but did not get a group going in year one, according to the figures on the LINk website.

Hermitage Surgery and Moredon Medical Centre both stated that they were “trying” to put together a group after signing up for payment.

At Hawthorn Medical Centre, the surgery has had a PPG since 1995 and last year it signed up to the national initiative to support PPG development in practices and to use representative patient feedback to drive improvements in the practice.

An NHS Swindon spokesman said: “Practices, such as Moredon Medical Centre, have been promoting the opportunity to take part in a Patient Participation Group to their patients on their website, since October 2011, but with little response from the public as yet.

“The scheme, which is non-mandatory, was introduced in April 2011, and has been designed to gather patients’ feedback.”

“Participating practices have 24 months to set up their Patient Participation Groups within the scheme.

“However, Swindon PCT supports continued, wider patient consultation, as best practice.”