Nairn and Ardersier Patients Group holding a public meeting Weds night (4th Feb)

Gurnites will perhaps remember this previous Gurn article "Community Councils to take on Patients Consultation Group Role". At a meeting back at the end of September Dick Youngson outlined how the local Practice wished to work with the Community Councils. We reported:

"Gurnites will recall that the relationship between the Patients Participation Group and the Nairn Healthcare practice recently fell to pieces in controversial circumstances – see Gurn articles here and here. Chairing the meeting of Nairn’s three CCs last night in the Community and Arts Centre Dick Youngson revealed he had had a meeting with the doctors at the practice and he said:

“They want to work through us as the medium for an exchange of communication from the communities back to them and all their staff, especially the nurses that so expertly run the clinics. ..." More details of what Dick said here. 

Despite this new initiative and the dissolution of the former patients participation group a new body emerged in the spring of last year called the Nairn and Ardersier Patients Group. Their website states: 

"The group’s committee was elected at the public meeting in April and has remained together ever since, working hard to ensure patients views and concerns are represented to those who provide us with health and social care services in the area.

We have held a number of meetings with NHS Highland’s Head of Public Engagement and the Scottish Health Council’s representative in the Highlands. The result is that we will be able to represent patients’ views not only on health services including physiotherapy and dentistry but also on social care, such as care at home and residential care.

We have regularly met with Jean-Pierre Sieczkarek who is the NHS Highland South Area Manager. Jean-Pierre and his colleagues are very keen to encourage patient engagement in the shaping and provision of health and social care in our region." More details here.

The public meeting is being held in the Community and Arts Centre on 4th February 2015, 7pm.