Since the introduction of Bargoose, both Partners and patients alike have gained a greater understanding of each other’s needs and built a culture of receptive listening and responding.

The benefits to all parties have been enormous. Meetings are held every 6 weeks and are always attended by a Partner on a rotation basis and the Practice Manager. Over 30 newsletters have been produced, generally on a quarterly basis, suggestion boxes have been introduced, dedicated notice boards for Bargoose have been installed at both sites and contain photos of all the Committee members with brief details of their interests and backgrounds.  There are also notice boards at both sites specifically used to cover a health topic, which are changed on a monthly basis and are looked after by a committee member. Do let us know if you have any ideas or material for topics that would be of interest to patients.

Bargoose have been innovative to patient care in organising a number of health evenings. These have been:

• Drop in Health Evenings when speakers give a presentation and various organisations (relating to health and welfare) have displays. Our GP’s attend and present a question and answer session which is always enjoyed by the 50+ patients present.
• An open evening for young people 16 – 25 with contributions from 6 specialists in various aspects of health and fitness with 3 of the Partners and the practice nurses present. This was attended by 12 youngsters.
• A Parents Health Evening for adults caring for a child (children) aged 1 – 8 years with speakers on First Aid, Nutrition, Minor Illnesses and Allergies. Attended by nearly 40 parents.

In addition

• 30+ newsletters have been published all containing health related topics. These are collected by patients from the surgeries and we generally produce approximately 800 copies of each edition.
• Bargoose were directly responsible for arranging for the mobile breast screening unit to visit the surgery and over 1400 women were screened. The hospital has now ceased this due to financial reasons.
• Direct involvement with the practice in the planning and implementation of changes to our Phlebotomy Service and the introduction of new systems for dealing with blood forms.
• Direct involvement with the practice in the introduction of a new telephone system which has increased our accessibility by telephone results in the survey from 43% to 90%.
• Introduction of a Healthy Walks Group which meets monthly on alternate Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. and an evening walking group that meets fortnightly on Wednesday evenings at 7.00 from May – September.

In April 2005 Bargoose won the Strategic Health Authorities Investing in Your Health Awards “Improving the Patient Experience” category and in December 2006 an article was published in Work Based Learning in Primary Care titled “Organisational learning developed through implementing a successful patient participation group”.