About the campaign
Despite the great work being done, many more practices could be benefit from having a PPG. The Growing Patient Participation campaign has been set up by the National Association for Patient Participation, NHS Alliance, Royal College of General Practitioners and the British Medical Association to raise awareness of the advantages of PPGs, to encourage more to be set up and to support the work of existing PPGs.
The campaign marks an important milestone in the growth of PPGs, and seeks to promote their role in helping to achieve the ambitions set out for the NHS.
To find out more about the campaign partners, you can visit their websites through the links below:
Dr Michael Dixon, chair of NHS Alliance, said, “PPGs are the future for general practice: a means of co-producing health and better services in general practice and ensuring that they are right for every patient population. We will know the future has arrived when every GP practice and polyclinic has a fully effective and engaged patient participation group. We hear endless cant about patient power: this is the real thing”.
Royal College of General Practitioners
Professor Steve Field, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said: “The relationship between GP and patients is a unique one and an equal one. By having an active patient partnership group (PPG) in a GP practice, both sides can learn from each other. This brings great benefits all round, not least in helping practices run more effectively and providing services that local people need and want.”
Dr Graham Box, chief executive of NAPP, said: “All PPGs have the common aim of helping ensure GP practices remain accountable, dynamic and responsive to their local populations’ non-clinical needs. We hope to see a significant rise in the number being set-up over the coming months, with the help of the national campaign, as more people are made aware of their value.”
Dr Laurence Buckman, Chairman, General Practitioners Committee, British Medical Association said: “The British Medical Association believes that listening and responding to the views of patients using a PPG is the best way not only to develop the practice for the benefit of patients, but also for the surgery itself.”