Ashwell Medical Centre has introduced a group called “Discover My Plate”, which has now been running successfully for a few months, with about 15 patients attending each group.

The group is organised by our senior receptionist, Tahira, with the help of Catherine Benson, our patient participation chair and Practice Health Champion.

The event is advertised by posters in the surgery as well as making a call to a group of patients which have medical conditions or live on their own. Patients are also asked to bring along a healthy dish if they can because they can then talk about their own dish or other patients can ask them about how they cooked their dish, as this is another way of socialising with each other.

Main aims of Discover My Plate Group are:

• Patients to socialise with other patients as well as having something to eat.
• Practice will refer patients if needed to our social prescriber who will help patients with variety of different areas.
• The practice benefits from this patient participation as a platform for achieving feedback from patients about services we provide.
• This year we have arranged dieticians to attend and have a chat with patients who attend the group. We plan to develop the group over 2019 by introducing speakers   to inform and receive feedback from the group around local services available to our patient population.
• If you would like to know when the next meeting is due or would like further information then please speak to a member of our reception team.

Attendees: Health champions, Catherine, Tahira Parveen.

About 15 patients were present  Food cooked by Tahira and patients, mainly healthy, Fruit chaat, Dahi Baleh, Brown rice with chicken, Daal, Steamed chicken Wraps

Naomi Health Care Assistant was present introduced herself to the patients, cooked chips in the air fryer, healthy option instead of frying.

Patients had the opportunity to socialise amongst each other and shared their views on the extension of Ashwell, plans were looked at by patients and then Patients put forward ideas like:

News 24 being played in the waiting area Water dispenser machine Tea/Coffee Air Conditioning in waiting area Coloured walls in waiting area

Tahira also made few referrals to the social prescriber.

The group continued to run up to 6pm.

Attendees: Health Champions, Catherine, Elaine attended the group. Tahira Jabeen

We had a great turn out at today's meeting so thank you all who came and contributed.

The food was cooked by Tahira, Catherine and some of our patients.

On the menu this month was, 

• Chicken Soup,
• Steamed Chicken  Wraps
• Spinach curry
• Fruit and pasta salad

Aleema our Social Prescriber from The Hale Project was present and introduced herself to the patients.  She was able to talk about the services Hale provides. 

Some patients who were present at the group had already met Aleema and they also helped promote the excellent work Aleema has been doing with them.  We were able to help some of the patients who attended the meeting make a referral to our social prescriber.

Feedback was also received from patients about our services and how easy they found it to contact the practice.  The survey results can be viewed under the survey section on the website.

Attendees Health Champions, Catherine, Tahira, Karen Ohlsson attended the group.

About 10 patients were present,

The food was cooked by Tahira

On the menu this month we had:

• Chicken, Egg and Vegetable Fried Rice
• Vegetable Rolls
• Savoury Chaat
• Semolina Pudding
• Salads brought in by patients.

Karen Ohlsson/Practice Nurse was present.  She introduced herself to the patients and spoke to them about what her job involves.

Once again patients had the opportunity to socialise amongst each other what was really nice this month was a number of patients met after many years of not seeing each other.

Attendees: Health champions, Elaine, Catherine, Stewart, Tahira Jabeen, Samina Ashraf attended the group. 
 
We also had about 15 patients present too.

Food cooked by Tahira and Catherine, mainly healthy,

On the menu this month was:

• Steamed Chicken and Potatoes,
• Chicken Cesar Salad, Chick Pea Salad,
• Homemade cous cous.

Samina Ashraf/Warfarin nurse introduced herself to the patients and spoke to them about her job role.
 Patients had the opportunity to socialise amongst each other and shared their ideas about food.
 Following discussion with patients Tahira made few referrals to the social prescriber as well as receiving feedback from patients about our services

Tahira also referred few patients to Social Prescriber and received feedback from all patients who attended the group about our services.