Terms of Reference

Clift Surgery Patients’ Participation Group

Terms of Reference November 2009.

The Purpose of the Group.

1.1 The purpose of the Group is to establish formal liaison between the Practice and its patients which can act as a conduit for new ideas on how the operation of the Practice can be improved for the benefit of patients, for problems with any aspects of the present Practice operating arrangements, the Practice facilities or any other non clinical aspect of patient/Practice relations.

1.2 The Group will not deal with any specific problem between a particular patient and a particular practitioner, for which other channels exist.

2. Reporting

2.1 The Group will report to the Practice and to the public through its approved minutes which, subject to any specific editing of material which may, for the time being be confidential (see 6.4 below), shall be made available to the patient community.

2.2 The Group may produce and distribute as it sees fit any additional publicity or information material that it believes may serve the Purpose of the Group. 3. Funding 3.1 The Group will not, in the first instance, be a funded organisation. Lay members will serve the Group on a voluntary basis. Those from the Practice staff who serve on the group will serve under such terms of employment as the Practice shall determine. 3.2 The Practice will supply without charge to the Group, the meeting and secretarial facilities required for the Group to meet and to produce its minutes.

3.3 The Group’s agreed actions will be undertaken by the lay members on a voluntary basis and, where appropriate, by the Practice staff members as part of the Practice contribution to the Group.

3.4 The Group may, at its own discretion, undertake to raise funds from the community for Group purposes. 4. Composition and Terms of Service 4.1 The group shall consist of up to 6 lay members and up to 4 Practice staff, one of whom shall normally be the Practice Manager or a deputy.

4.2 The lay members shall initially be drawn by invitation of the Practice from among its patients.

4.3 Lay members shall serve for not more than two years as members of the Group and shall retire automatically by rotation, save that in order to preserve continuity, three of the first 6 lay members shall retire after 2 years, and three after three years. Retiring members may not be re-appointed to the Group until at least two years from their retirement date. The Group shall agree which of its initial six lay members shall retire first.

4.4 Replacement lay members of the Group shall be drawn from volunteers who’s participation has been sought through the widest public canvas that the Group can arrange and shall be decided by the Group. In the event that there are more volunteers than are needed to replace the retirees, the Group shall seek to maintain as good a balance across the various patient sub-sets (young families, the elderly, working professionals, etc) as they can. Consistent with this concept, priority should be given to those volunteers who have been waiting longest.

4.5 The Practice members of the Group shall be decided by the Practice and may be varied from time to time at the discretion of the Practice. 5. Procedure 5.1 The Group shall elect its own Chair from among the lay members of the Group. The Chair shall retire from this post automatically after one year but may be re-elected to one further one-year term.

5.2 The Group shall consider and provide its opinion and or advice to the Practice on any matter that is within its competence (see 1 above) and which is raised to it by any patient registered with the Practice including by lay members of the Group or by the Practice itself.

5.3 The Group shall encourage the Practice patients to bring to its notice by any practical means any issue that they may wish the Group to consider.

5.4 The Group will normally reach its decisions by consensus but may record a vote of those lay members present at a meeting and decide by simple majority. In the event of a tied vote, the Chair shall have a casting vote. Practice staff will not have a vote in such circumstances except in the case of the appointment of new lay members.

5.5 The Group may, under the terms of sub-clause 5.4, vary these Terms of Reference as it sees fit subject to remaining within the remit defined in clause 1 above. 6. Meetings

6.1 The Group shall meet as frequently as it may agree, but shall hold not less than 4 meetings each year. At any meeting, 5, of whom not more than 2 shall be Practice staff, shall form a quorum.

6.2 Meetings will normally be held at the Clift Surgery but may be held elsewhere at the discretion of the Group.

6.3 Meetings shall follow the form of Agenda set out in the appendix to these Terms of Reference

6.4 Minutes of the meetings shall be taken by the Group secretary (who shall normally be the Practice Manager or a deputy appointed by the Practice) and shall record at least the decisions and actions agreed upon by the Group. These minutes, once approved, shall be given the widest possible publicity among the Practice patients, subject to any specific item(s) agreed by the Group to be for the time being confidential to the Group, which shall be removed from the published text but not from the agreed minutes. In case of dispute as to what is or is not confidential, the senior representative of the Practice present when the minutes are approved and the Chair shall each hold a veto.

Appendix

Form of Agenda

1. The ---th meeting of the Clift Surgery Patient Participation Group, held at ----------- on -------------------

2. Those Present (It is suggested that all of the names of the members be permanently included and those not in attendance be struck on each occasion)

3. Apologies for absence

4. Minutes of the previous meeting to be approved

5. Matters arising from these minutes not considered elsewhere on the Agenda

6. Report on actions taken since the last meeting

7. New items for discussion:

a. Raised by patients or lay members b. Raised by the Practice

8. Date time and place of next meeting.