The experiences of Patient Participation Group members.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) in Primary Care: How do members of PPGs view their experiences and impact?
IRAS ID
142135
Contact name
Bruno Rushforth
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leeds
Research summary
Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) in Primary Care: How do members of PPGs view their experiences and impact?
Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) were first created in an effort to provide a more inclusive service in healthcare. They are intended as an opportunity for patients to be able to give constructive feedback to their GP practice in order to improve the service to the satisfaction of both patients and healthcare staff. It is usually made up of patient representatives from the area the practice serves and meetings are attended by healthcare professionals from the practice itself. The group is self-managed by the patients and they are encouraged to become involved in improving their local practice and community. In an effort to encourage more GP practices and patients to set these groups up incentives from the government have been offered over the past two years, called the PPG Directed Enhanced Service (DES) contract.
This project aims to interview patients from PPGs in the North Kirklees Clinical Commissioning Group area. Their experiences and feelings on being part of a PPG will be explored; providing more of an insight into whether this aspect of healthcare is effective in terms of PPGs members making successful changes to their practice and whether there is room to improve the service. This will be conducted via semi-structured interviews, lasting around half an hour, between the researcher and individuals from PPGs in North Kirklees. The interviews will be audio-recorded, transcribed by the researcher and then analysed for common themes.
It is hoped that this research will be useful to the North Kirklees CCG in that it may help to better inform them of current PPG members' experiences. The CCG lead may be able to use this information to influence their current policy on the governance of PPGs in the area.
REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/NE/0051
Date of REC Opinion
14 Feb 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion