About our Patient Participation Group (PPG)

Neetside Surgery - Your Patient Participation Group. (PPG)

Joining our Surgery's patient participation group offers a valuable opportunity to engage with your healthcare community. It allows you to voice your opinions, share experiences, and contribute to improving services.

By participating, you can help us to shape the way care is delivered, ensuring it meets the needs of patients. Additionally, it provides a crucial sense of connection with other patients and staff, creating a collaborative environment focused on enhancing overall health and well-being. Your voice matters.

Patient participation is   
Patients working with a practice to:   
• contribute to the continuous improvement of services ensuring practices are more responsive to the 
needs and wishes of patients at their GP Practice.
• foster improved communication between the practice and its patients;   
• help patients to take more responsibility for their health; and  
• provide practical support and help to implement change.  
• make a positive difference to both patients and the practice  by expressing opinions on behalf of patients regarding their GP Practice policies.

Neetside Surgery PPG group determines its own activities according to the needs of the community and the practice itself.   

Beyond Neetside Surgery we provide a patient voice to the local Primary Care Network which develops services for our five local practices.

• PPGs work by building a relationship between the practice and its patients that breaks down barriers 
and shares information.   
• PPGs can develop to influence the wider NHS, most notably the decisions that are made on behalf of patients about the services that are to be available to them.   
Patient participation is not   
A forum for complaints   
Clear ground rules are upheld to ensure that PPG members do not use the PPG as a vehicle to 
resolve their own personal issues (however PPGs often lead to a reduction in the number of 
complaints overall)