Ashford Medical Partnership (AMP)
Patient Participation Group
Minutes of face to face meeting at Willesborough Health Centre
Held Tuesday 17th June 2025 18:30
Attendees:
AMP:
Jo Shepherd (JS)
Tim Pethick (TP)
PPG:
Martin Bennett (MB) Chair
David Pieris
Cyrus Keeka
Liz Wright (LW)
Apologies
Dr Navin Kumta
Melany Sandor-Klinyec (MSK)
Joan Riley
Aftab Khan
Lorraine Monkhouse
Melonie Pentacost
Desmond Henley
Helen Bowen
Dhanuja Varghese
Derek Light
Welcome
MB welcomed everyone to the PPG meeting, it was noted that only those who attended and those that sent apologies had responded to the invite sent by JS.
MB apologised for the lack of a meeting in previous months and that there had been some issues that required discussion between MB, MSK, JS and TP. The outcome resulted in MB & MSK taking the role of Co-Chair.
JS reported that few members had requested removal from the PPG group. The committee consists of two Co-Chairs we would ask if PPG member would take on the role of secretary to take the minutes.
MSK has been a member of the Pan PPG WhatsApp group for a while and now MB has also joined. We hope this will allow us to work with other PPG Groups in the Ashford Area.
AMP Update
TP updated the meeting with the following.
Care is to be moved out from hospitals and into the community who will focus on care in conjunction with Care Neighbourhoods. No information has been given on how this will work at present.
NHS England is being abolished and absorbed into the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC). Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) are being merged – there are currently 42 of them but the plan is to reduce to 27. Our ICB is currently Kent and Medway and it likely that this ICB will remain as a standalone ICB because of the size of Kent. However, the government wants all ICBs to cut headcount by at least 30% and costs by 50%.
Kent & Medway ICB will start consulting with staff regarding redundancies in August. This has obviously had a negative effect on moral and a lack of any decisions being made. The Kent & Medway ICB is to make staff reductions by year end. ICB roles are to change but no detail has been released on this yet.
The Kent Community Health Foundation Trust is well placed to become a Care Neighbourhood.
The AMP funding increase was all used to cover costs and wages imposed by the government resulting in an overall reduction in funding for the year.
Population growth predicts that an extra 410 hospital beds will be required in the Ashford area. Hospitals have been instructed to reduce their waiting lists; they have achieved this by referring patients on the waiting list back to the GP’s. Contracts have also been cancelled an example is rheumatology which they have referred back to their GP, the GP’s have few or no rheumatology experts resulting in Patients who are referred back to GP’s being referred back to the hospitals but they then are new on the waiting list which reduces the list of those who have been on the waiting list long term.
All GP practices are being required to risk stratify their patient populations to formulate prevention and healthcare interventions suited to patients. AMP is using Johns Hopkins patient need groups (PNGs) to risk stratify the patient population; these will consist of 11 groups, group 11 requiring the most care. At present the focus will be on frail patients. Before using PNGs AMP will communicate this to patients. Eventually, the group the patient falls in will be indicated on the NHS App in line with the government focusing on technology and the NHS App. This is due for implementation by October 2025.
THE government and DHSC are working on a 10 year strategy for the NHS. The 10-year plan is likely to be issued within two weeks, there is no detail at present.
Staff illness has been poor, particularly in nursing which has resulted in appointment being cancelled. This has resulted in adverse effect on customer complaints and Family & Friends statistics.
Training has been organised for all staff in AMP on how to handle conflict situations.
GP numbers are in a good position.
7% of patients are missing appointments and this has a large impact on other patients.
PPG Update
There was much discussion with JS & TP during the AMP update which resulted in clarification and as reported in the AMP Update.
During the welcome MB thanked those for attending but the turnout was low, as also mentioned in the welcome there had been a considerable delay in this meeting. This was due to some doubt as to how the PPG is to move forward.
As also mentioned, MSK and MB are now Co-Chairs. We need help if the PPG is to continue, there are over 200 patients who have opted in to be members and each one is sent an email with meeting details. The same small group tend to respond and thank you to those.
We as group are going to look at promoting the PPG on social media and via existing newsletters.
As reported in the welcome MSK and MB are now members of the Pan PPG WhatsApp group which we hope will give us more access to other PPG groups, MSK has been working with other groups previously.
LW explained how ABC are promoting a healthy diet and asked if AMP can promote the campaign. It was explained that whilst the benefit of a healthy diet is well known there was unfortunately no budget available to promote this at present.
Date of next meeting 9/9/2025 18:30 @ Willesborough Health Centre.