Patient Participation Group
About Us
The PPG consists of a group of practice staff and patients who have an interest in health and social care issues and who want to get involved in decisions about the range and quality of services provided by the practice.
We would like to know how we can improve our service to you and how you perceive our surgery and staff.
To help us with this, we have set up a patient participation group. We will ask the members of this representative group some questions from time to time, such as what you think about our opening times or the quality of the care or service you received. We will contact you via email and keep our surveys succinct so it shouldn’t take too much of your time.
We aim to gather around a hundred patients from as broad a spectrum as possible to get a truly representative sample. We need young people, workers, retirees, people with long-term conditions and people from non-British ethnic groups.
- PPG minutes of meetings
- PPG minutes 17.07.2020.docx
Patient Practice Group Signup
Patient Practice Group Contact Form
Patient Practice Group Minutes Archive
How to Join
If you are interested in joining the group please contact the practice management team for more details.
The group would also like to contact patients on occasion by email and/or text so that they can obtain the views of the widest group of patients possible. We would like to obtain your email address and mobile phone number to do this. Please complete the Patient Contact Form to provide your consent for this.
Recent Events
Fundraiser for The Alzheimer’s Society
The team at Darwen Healthlink and the PPG (Patient Participation Group) recently hosted their charity fundraiser event Elf Day for the Alzheimer’s Society.
The Team raised money through fancy dress, tombola, raffle and a local school choir to which all patients were welcome.
Working alongside the PPG the Practice raised a huge £630 pounds for the charity.
Chairs of the PPG
Chris McIlveen
Chair of Darwen Healthlink Patient Participation Group
Chris has been a patient at the Practice for many years, and has been involved with the PPG for the past 4 years.
He recently retired from his role as Operations Director for Fujitsu UK& Ireland. Chris has more than 39 years experience in the IT services industry, during which he has developed significant skills and experience of many aspects of operational management in many different fields.
Last year Chris assisted the Practice with the collation and presentation of the patient survey results to the CQC during their audit, receiving some very positive feedback.
He has also reached out to other active PPGs in the area, to see if there are things which we can re-use which will save us time and avoid us reinventing the wheel. This enabled us to quickly produce a Terms of Reference document for the PPG.
He has subscribed our PPG to the National Association of Patient Participation (NAPP), in order to gain access to best practice processes and network with other PPGs across the UK.
He has recently successfully applied to join the East Lancashire Hospitals Trust Public Participation group, and has just been elected Vice-Chair of the Group.
Chris is currently leading the PPG in understanding the priorities which need to inform the action plan for the next three years. A key part of that will come from a patient survey which will take place later this year.
Hamad
Vice Chair of Darwen Healthlink Patient Participation Group
Hamad has been with the practice since 1991.
Hamad is born into a medical family, with his late father being a GP in the practice.
He himself is a pharmacologist and studied locally doing his MSc hons in Medical sciences at University Of Central Lancashire.
He began his career in Pharmaceuticals aiding in both the product and medicine side but also on the auditing side. Due to illnesses in the family Hamad has also undertaken a careers role and has worked with Blackburn and Darwen careers service engaging as their health office. He is passionate about health and is a director of a mental health company which promotes Music and performing arts to destigmatise mental health. His passion exceeds to areas of Neurology and in particular mechanisms to understand Parkinson’s and Dementia better.
He is a huge fan of holistic therapies too. He wants to revisit old relationships within Lancashire to make a stronger approach in improving the trusts working partnerships with local resources.
Hs Recent appointment as a Governor for Lancashire Care Foundation Trust (LCFT) has allowed him to gain a more rounded approach to bridge the gap between Primary Care and Secondary care across the region.
He is currently also involved in promoting health and Wellbeing across Darwen.
Hamad has many interests including walking, fitness, playing sports, but also loves to participate as a volunteer to help across the area.
His knowledge and experience of changes seen in his beloved Darwen have served him well to gain extensive networking opportunities which he will utilise in his role as Vice chair of the PPG.
One of his main aims is to make the PPG the gold standard, and to give both the patients and the surgery a closer more open approach in deliverance of bespoke services.