When you think back to the reason why you started working in general practice, was it because it was well paid? You loved the hours? Was it convenient geographically? Perhaps those suggestions are part of the answer, but I bet most of you wanted to make a difference. It’s what drives so many of us – having an impact on our patients, working in a place we love, and striving to do things better.

So, if we really want to make a difference to our patients and communities, why is it that when I talk to practices about PPGs, I often hear a resounding groan? Is it due to that age-old problem of the kinds of people who volunteer, or the ‘death by agenda’ workings of traditional PPGs?

It’s time we all looked at patient engagement differently – particularly during this week, Patient Participation Week. PPG meetings don’t have to be formal meetings, they don’t have to involve the same kinds of patients, and they don’t even have to take place face to face. After all, these meetings should be something to look forward to, not dread.

When I started in practice management, it struck me that we didn’t have all the skills we needed in the practice team, but we did have thousands of patients who all had something in common – us! Their general practice. Many of these patients had great stories to tell about how the practice had supported them, and if we phrased it differently, I thought they might even be happy to work with us, to offer their skills and time to support other people. I want to tell you about how we achieved this at my practice and perhaps inspire you to do the same at yours.

First of all, we targeted social media; we created a page that became the focus for us and our patients. We shared community information and health information and we showed our community our vulnerabilities too, and asked them for help. We needed some photos taken and didn’t have the skills, so offered this to our patients. We had a volunteer who was doing an art course and needed some pictures for their portfolio – it was one of those win-win things. Perfect!

People then started to tell us more about their skills and experiences and soon we created a real community based on Facebook. It’s hard work, but probably not as hard as trying to get people to come into the practice for a face-to-face PPG meeting. For me, being consistent and open are the key things to having an engaging social media presence.

Before we knew it, we had volunteers with lots of skills – people who wanted to help us, not necessarily as a PPG, but definitely in a new model of participation. We soon had a key group of about 15 people with a wide variety of skills and time, all of whom wanted to make a difference and share their knowledge. So, we arranged over 85 coffee mornings, singalongs, walking groups, self-supporting disease-specific groups – the best of these was probably the one for patients with fibromyalgia. The group I was most passionate about personally was a care leavers group; those who had come through the care system met for coffee once a week. They had support from the practice when they needed it, but what they needed more was each other. The common denominator was the practice; we just brought them together.

What I want to do is challenge you to think differently about patient participation. It doesn’t need to be a traditional PPG; it could be disease specific, it could represent your LGBTQI community, it could meet in the pub and not the practice at 3pm on a Wednesday afternoon. We need to do things differently, just as we’re asking our patients to access our services differently. We need to remember why we’re in this job.