We use cookies to make this site work. We'd also like to set optional cookies so we can understand how the site is used and improve it. We will not set optional cookies unless you accept them. You can change your choice at any time from the Cookie settings link in the footer.
Strictly necessary cookies
These cookies are required for the site to work. They store your cookie preferences and keep your session secure. They are exempt from consent under PECR Regulation 6(4) because they are essential to deliver the service you have requested.
Optional cookies
Optional cookies help us understand how the site is used and provide additional features such as analytics, accessibility tools and translation. We will only set them if you accept.
Patient Group
Our Patient Group (PG) meets to provide a forum for discussion about the practice.
Welcome from the Woodlands’ Patient Group Chair, Flavia Leslie
Every registered patient of the Woodlands’ Practice is entitled to belong to its Patient Group (PG). Our message is: “Patients and Practice, working in Partnership.” We exist to help improve services for patients.
Patient Group Committee Members:
- Lay members: Flavia Leslie (Chair), Wendy Price (Vice-Chair), Kevin Fitzgerald, Barbara Capps, Mary Harrison, Jim Sayers, Gaynor Thomas, Valerie Thwaites, Geraldine Gadsby, Keith Allen
- Practice members: Dr Helen Miles (Practice Partner representative), Kathryn Hall (Practice Manager) and Caroline Bodinham (Assistant Practice Manager)
Joining the Patient Group (PG):
If you would like to be kept informed about the work of our Patient Group, please let us know via this form. We will add a code to your record to ensure that you receive regular communication from the Patient Group and the Practice. If you no longer wish to hear from us, please use this form and ask us to remove that code from your record.
Patient Group Constitution
1. Aims
- To promote an understanding of the Practice and the conditions under which it operates amongst the wider patient population.
- To engage in activities which support the Practice.
- To promote effective communication between patients, medical and administrative staff of Woodlands Medical Centre and Blewbury branch surgery.
- To ensure that the aims and work of the Patient Group is inclusive and reaches as wide an audience as possible
- To provide a mechanism to encourage patients’ suggestions and constructive criticism about the Practice and its organisation and to provide feedback to the Practice about patients’ expectations and concerns.
- To facilitate discussion and communication on topics of general health interest, including the promotion of good health, the prevention of disease and the development of voluntary support for patients with particular needs.
2. Membership
- Membership is free, voluntary, unpaid and open to all patients of the Woodlands Medical Centre.
3. Committee
- The business of the Patient Group will be conducted by a Committee consisting of a Practice Partner, a Practice Manager, and up to 10 patients who have expressed an interest in becoming more involved and joining the committee to support the work of the Practice and the Patient Group.
- Where applicants exceed the recommended 10 patients, consideration will be given to length of service, availability and first come first saved basis.
- Other members of staff, patients and outside organizations may be co-opted when appropriate due to specific topics or projects.
- Administration of the Group and the PG Committee will be provided by a lay: Chairman, Vice Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer, who will be elected by the committee, from its elected lay-members.
- Committee members will be asked to declare any interests that they may have in any commercial enterprise which is health or care related and will be asked to refrain from any promotion of this work when carrying out PPG business.
- Much of the work of the PG committee is conducted via email. Anyone who is not able to use email should declare this in order that alternative communication mechanisms can be put in place to ensure inclusivity for that committee member.
- Membership of the committee is based on the regular attendance and commitment to attend committee meetings which will usually take place during the working day. Persistent non-attendance at committee meetings may result in the member being asked to vacate their position in order to enable another interested patient to take their place.
- New members will be asked to attend a short interview prior to joining the committee formally to discuss the role and their contribution and to clarify any queries about the workings of the committee and the wider PPG.
4. Meetings
- Meetings of the Committee shall be open meetings held at the discretion of the Committee and shall be minuted. The minutes will be displayed on the Practice website and will be available separately on request.
- The quorum for a Committee meeting shall be at least one of: a Practice Partner, or the Practice Manager; together with at least 3 of the Patient representative committee members, one of whom should be the committee Chair or Vice Chair or, in their absence, their delegated representative. The Practice Partner and Practice Manager may appoint alternates if they are unable to attend.
- Either the Chairman or the Practice Partner may request a meeting with the other at a suitable time to discuss matters of common concern.
- An Annual General Meeting will be held before the end of May in each year. Advance notice will be provided to members of the patient group at least 4 weeks prior to the AGM. The meeting will also be publicised in the practice and on the website.
- An Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) may be held at the discretion of the Committee or at the written request of 10 patients. Advance notice will be provided to members of the patient group at least 2 weeks prior to the EGM.
5. Wider Patient group membership management
- Membership of the patient group will be indicated by a code on the patient record to enable easy communication via text message which may include links to key information that may interest members on the practice website.
- New members of the Patient Group will be invited to join via the Practice website.
6. Financial Management
- The patient group holds a small discretionary fund for the purpose of funding activities that support the aims of the Patient Group and fosters improved education and understanding of key health topics for patients of Woodlands Medical Centre.
- Funds are administered by the practice in partnership with the patient group and decisions on how funds will be used must be made and agreed by the PPG Committee.
Latest Patient Group Minutes
15th January 2026
- Date: 15th January 2026
Apologies
- Gaynor Parsons
- Kevin Fitzgerald
- Maral Soltani-Taylor
Minutes
The minutes were approved.
Research at Woodlands – Linda Binnaccioni, Research Nurse
Linda explained about the expansion of research at the practice and some of the trials that the practice has been working on. She explained that taking part in research is voluntary and if you don’t want to take part or don’t want to be contacted, we can add a code to your records to ensure that you aren’t contacted. Some of the trials that we have been participating in recently include trials on diabetes, mental health, gout, sleep, respiratory, UTIs and antibiotic usage. The Committee were very positive about the opportunity to take part in research trials and recognized the value of the trials in the development of future healthcare provision.
Update from Practice
Presentation on Complaints and Feedback (KH)
Kathryn gave a presentation on how the practice looks at complaints and feedback to the group.
There are monthly meetings to review complaints, learning events and any significant events. At this meeting we also review the Friends and Family responses. Any Friends and Family responses where staff are named are shared with those members of staff. Staff really appreciate the positive feedback and it is a great morale boost. The Committee were pleased that positive feedback was being shared in this way.
Friends and Family feedback in 2025 where the practice was rated good or very good was 92.44%. The lowest score was 89.05% in May and the highest was 94.67% in December. Friends and Family feedback is all anonymous so it is difficult to respond to any specific concerns that have been raised here as we cannot identify the responder.
Typical feedback includes lots of positive comments about staff being kind and helpful. Some patients feed comment that the appointment is difficult to use but these comments are outweighed by more comments saying the appointment system is better. There was some feedback to say that people would like to be informed when the clinic is running late. This is difficult to achieve with 20 clinics running simultaneously but there is a notice on the TV screen which encourages staff to check if they have waited more than 20 minutes. We have realized that many people are looking at their phones rather than the TV screen, so we are creating more static posters on the wall to reflect key information including the note about waiting more than 20 minutes.
There have been a couple of requests for an appointment cancellation line. This is already in existence and patients can also cancel their appointment from their text reminder. We wonder if people don’t look at these. If people have messages enabled in the NHS App then more information tends to go to the app rather than as a text to save money in the NHS so perhaps people are missing these.
In 2025 there were 46 formal complaints. The main subjects of complaints related to appointment availability, communication and delays or failure to refer. Of the 46 complaints, 15 were upheld, 10 were partially upheld and 21 were not upheld. This information is all fed back to NHS England each year.
Informal complaints are recorded as learning events so that any feedback or learning can be considered at our monthly meetings.
Some patients ask to change their GP. We have now instigated a process for all requests to be submitted in writing, and this will go via the practice manager to check any concerns and track to monitor if there are any patterns
Appointment System
The appointment system is working well overall. We continue to encourage all children’s referrals to use the Healthier Together App as this has saved on appointment requests by supporting worried parents to self-care, but also the information format from the app is extremely helpful in supporting the doctor to triage children more quickly.
If we can triage and signpost a good number of patients to other services, then we will re-open the medical form for more patients. If there are only a few spaces left for the day, then we will keep these for people that might struggle to use the form and ring in later. This is particularly important for older patients and has been discussed and agreed previously with the Committee.
Staffing including doctors, nurses and admin staff
The practice is holding steady with staffing at the moment. Our new nurse is halfway through her primary care training course. Our new nurse associate is also progressing well with cervical smear training. We are really pleased to have more cervical smear capacity in place now which was a concern raised at the AGM. One of the Health Care Assistants is sadly leaving so we have advertised for a replacement. This role is particularly key in supporting patients with long term conditions for their annual monitoring appointments.
Patient list size
As at today’s date, the list size is 18883
Practice Premises including Great Western Park
The scheme is currently out to advert, with expressions of interest and returns due by 13th February.
Any Other Business
There has been the offer of a session on raising awareness about scams from Age UK and the committee agreed this would be a good idea.
A reminder that the pop-up session on the NHS App by Aston Online is taking place on Friday 13th February.
Flavia suggested that some training on CPR sessions might be helpful for staff and that someone had recently carried out some training in Blewbury which proved very useful.
Date and Time of Next Meeting
Thursday 16th April at 10.30am
Newsletters
Practice and Patient Participation Group Newsletter: January 2026
Successful flu clinics
Thank you to everyone who came for their annual flu jab at the practice. With nearly all pharmacies now offering flu jabs as well as covid jabs, we are aware how confusing it can be for patients when you are bombarded with offers. We have had a lot of appointments booked which were then not attended and are keen to avoid wasting precious appointment capacity if we can. We are waiting for guidance on the planned 2026 programme and will need to decide how many appointments to offer to provide the best service for patients alongside other local services that are available.
Parking pressure
The car park is getting quite busy at peak surgery times in the morning and early afternoon. Please take care when you are arriving and leaving the practice as there have been a few bumps recently.
Great western park
We are sure many of you have read about the delays with finding an affordable developer for the new premises on Great Western Park. We are obviously very disappointed but are continuing to work with the Integrated Care Board (ICB) to find an alternative solution as quickly as possible. An advert is currently out for expressions of interest for a new developer with a short turnaround with the aim of being able to appoint a developer early in the new year.
In the meantime, the practice is open for new registrations for patients moving in the area. The appointment of an additional doctor and nursing staff means we have capacity to take patients onto our list and still deliver services in accordance with the recommended number of appointments for our current patient population. Our online appointment request form has allowed us to accommodate more patients and prioritise patients according to the urgency of their condition by resolving some requests without the need for a face-to-face appointment and redirecting other queries to the local pharmacies who have had additional investment to support some of those distressing complaints which may be resolved quite quickly with medication.
These include:
- Children’s ear infections
- Impetigo
- Infected insect bits
- Sore throats
- Shingles
- Urinary tract infections in women aged 6 to 64
- Ring worm
Staffing
Dr Adam Jones is taking over from Dr Lucy Wilson as Senior Partner from January 2026.
We have a new doctor who started in September. Her name is Dr Victoria Pico. Dr Pico has worked in Didcot previously including at the Covid vaccination clinics. She has also worked in Abingdon so she is very familiar with the locality and the Oxfordshire system.
We have a new nurse who joined the team in September called Georgia. Georgia previously worked at the John Radcliffe Hospital and is training up to become a Practice Nurse.
We have also appointed a new Nurse Associate, Deanna Clare. Dee joins our newly qualified Nurse Associate, Carla Davies. You will recognize the NA team by their teal-coloured uniform.
We are really pleased to have been able to recruit to the nursing team which has meant we are able to offer a lot more nursing appointments including for smears and asthma.
New phone system
The practice changed our phone system at the end of September. The phone system is cloud-based and runs off a separate network to our computers, so we hope that this gives us more resilience in case of any network disruption. Thank you for bearing with us through a few teething problems with the set-up and strange messages appearing in different places within the system.
Since we moved to our online appointment request form, the number of calls and the amount of time taken to answer the phone has significantly reduced. The average waiting time for a call to be answered is now around 5 minutes compared to around 25 minutes 2 years ago.
NHS App
If you don’t already have it, we do recommend setting up the NHS App. There is an online form to request the level of access that you would like. The app will allow you to review your medical record; request medication; and also see your recent blood results which will save time ringing up to find them out. The NHS is also now using the app for cervical screening invitations and results. The App won’t give you access to your hospital records but any letters that are sent to your GP from the hospital should be copied to you and will also be saved on your GP Record so you will be able to see them via your GP record on the App.
Happy New Year to all our patients