We use cookies to help provide you with the best possible online experience.
By using this site, you agree that we may store and access cookies on your device. Cookie policy.
Cookie settings.
Functional Cookies
Functional Cookies are enabled by default at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings and ensure site works and delivers best experience.
3rd Party Cookies
This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.
Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.
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
3rd July 2025
- Date: 3rd July 2025
- Time: 10:30am
- Location: Woodlands Meeting Room
Present
- Flavia Leslie (FL) - Chair
- Wendy Price (WP) – Vice-Chair
- Babs Capps (BC)
- Mary Harrison (MH)
- Geraldine Gadsby (GG)
- Keith Allen (KA)
- Kevin Fitzgerald (KF)
- Jim Sayers (JS)
Practice Staff
- Dr Helen Miles (HM)
- Kathryn Hall (KH) Practice Manager
- Caroline Bodinham (CB) Assistant Practice Manage
Also in attendance
- Maral Soltani-Taylor (prospective PPG member)
- Jaz Kundi (Healthwatch)
Apologies
- Valerie Thwaites (VT)
- Gaynor Thomas (GT)
Minutes
The minutes of the last PPG committee meeting were approved.
Matters Arising
There were no matters arising.
Report from the Chair
FL reported that they held AGM last week (25th June) it was run very well with an interesting presentation from Dr Wilson and lots of important information was covered.
Practice Update
Appointment System
Agreed at last meeting that the appointment system would be a standing item on the agenda.
From the practice we feel the new system is working well. Over the last 2 weeks of June we ran with reduced triage capacity (6 sessions each week instead of 11). This was due to an increase in the waiting list for green (routine) already triaged appointments. The reduced capacity for triage allowed us to put on additional appointment clinics and has now cleared the waiting list and we are running normal triage sessions this week.
From October the government want the online triage form to remain open all day while the practice is open. We need to review and plan how we would manage that safely.
KH has spoken to a team regarding providing technical IT support to patients for completing the forms and getting access to the NHS App. We are looking at options to run support sessions but the company were also keen to look at the website to see if the process for booking appointments can be simplified.
If patients receive a message from GP with advice and the patient is not clear, it was agreed they should call the practice for help.
Most of the PPG members are not finding difficulty completing the form.
We encourage the use of the Healthier Together app for children as the information that is provided in the referral forms to the practice is a lot more detailed, which helps the doctors with
decision-making. However, use of the app has also helped to support parents who are worried about their children and may just need some reassurance.
Staffing
Doctors
We have a new GP partner joining us in September - Dr Vicky Pico.
Once she starts, we will increase our number of triage sessions to support more requests on Mondays and Tuesdays.
We will shortly be having new GP trainees coming to the practice for their specialist training. They are fully qualified doctors and will help to increase the number of appointments that are offered. We currently have 2 GP trainees and this will be increased to 4.
Nursing
At the last meeting we mentioned we had recruited 2 new nurses. However, since that meeting neither of them will now be joining the practice. We have interviewed again and have offered the role to one nurse. They are coming for a shadowing day at the practice before they fully commit.
We have had an expression of interest from a Nurse Associate and plan to interview.
Two of our HCAs are trained in wound management and have been helping to provide additional capacity for dressing clinics.
Admin Staff
We had two new receptionists join the team at the start of June and they are settling well into the role.
We have also invested in new uniforms for the reception tea
Patient List Size
Our list size has stabilized recently and we currently have about 18,800 patients.
It is believed that there are approximately 10,000 patients living within the Didcot area who are not currently registered at one of the practices in Didcot. This could be due to them moving into the area and not registering with a new GP or people who have never registered with a GP.
Dr Ward is leading on a project to carry out outreach clinics to try and help identify unmet cardiovascular needs in the local area. This will start in conjunction with Sofea who run the Community Larder in Didcot which we are hoping will be a good place to identify people who may not be getting the support they need from local health services. We also have a community wellbeing worker who will be going around the more deprived areas of Didcot to understand the barriers preventing people from getting the health support they need.
Practice Premises including Great Western Park
GWP is progressing slowly whilst the legal agreements between all parties are being considered.
The practice is also continuing to look at the potential option to build an extension on the car park adjacent to the building (gravel car park area). This will necessitate purchasing land from the Community Hospital site.
Annual General Meeting Feedback
There is a strong message about encouraging patients to use the NHS app.
It was agreed that it would be useful to ask the Social Prescribers to come to the next PPG meeting so options could be discussed about what groups would most be needed for the patient population.
Jaz from Healthwatch will do a mapping exercise of the groups already available, as it is felt that it would be easier to link into groups that are already operating rather than start from scratch.
Action: KH to invite Social Prescribers to next PPG Meeting.
Jaz Kundi from Healthwatch
Not sure what the future holds for Healthwatch following the recent government announcement that it will be disbanded.
In the meantime, they continue to do a lot of outreach work to help find out what patients need.
The Healthwatch sponsored video was shown a the AGM about how/what PPGs could do to support their patients better.
There was some discussion about how to support refugees based in Didcot. Jaz will forward some information to Kathryn about this.
Healthwatch are doing a lot of work to promote the use of the NHS app. Jaz will send a survey that can be distributed to patients to determine what the barriers to using it are.
Action: JK to send to KH for distribution.
Any Other Business (AOB)
We have a weight loss service that is going to come into the practice and run some clinics that patients can be referred to or can self-refer to. This is a trial to see if we can help patients access the service better.
Date and Time of Next Meeting
9th October 2025, 10:30am at Woodlands
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