MK Commissioning, the clinical commissioning group for Milton Keynes, is encouraging patients to join their GP practice's Patient Participation Group (PPG) to help influence healthcare decisions.

Patient Participation Groups are established in the majority of the practices in Milton Keynes with the aim to bring patients together to discuss what could improve their practice, as well as health issues that affect them.

Each Patient Participation Group is currently in the process of electing a representative who will sit on the MK Commissioning Patient Congress. The Patient Congress will work closely with the MK Commissioning Board and other groups to ensure patients are at the heart of local NHS decision making.

Clinical Commissioning Groups are the GP led groups which are taking over the purchasing of health services under government reforms. By April 2013 MK Commissioning aim to become fully authorised and take over responsibility from NHS Milton Keynes and Northamptonshire Primary Care Trust.

Kim Foy-Olowu, Practice Manager at MK Village Practice and MK Commissioning Board member, explains: "We believe this is a fantastic opportunity for patients to sit at the centre of the local NHS. The patient representatives will be responsible for feeding back information from the Patient Congress to their practices PPG and the wider practice, ensuring more people than ever before get the opportunity to comment on any proposals for the local NHS."

MK Commissioning is aiming to ensure it hears from a fair and representative proportion of the population of Milton Keynes. As well as the work it is doing through the Patient Congress and PPGs, MK Commissioning is also in the process of establishing a website, developing an electronic membership and working with partner organisations.

City MP Mark  said; ‘I welcome this Patient Participation Group, it is really important to let local people make the choices which matter to them and which helps them to engage in the changes which are going to be happening.’

Anyone interested in becoming a member of their GP practice's Patient Participation Group is encouraged to contact the practice manager at their surgery for more information.

If you are not registered with a GP please visit www.nhs.uk to see which practice you can register with.

Vodaphone have developed JustTextGiving which is a method of giving money to charity through your mobile phone.

Mark has welcomed this new fundraising method which is free to set up and every penny raised is given directly to the charity.

Commenting about this, Mark said; ‘JustTextGiving will completely change and modernise the way in which we make donations to charity, I think it is fantastic news that Vodaphone have made this happen and I would urge every charity in Milton Keynes to sign up to this.’

Several charities in Milton Keynes have already signed up to receive donations through text message, including Mr and Mrs Bullard War Memorial Gift, Age UK Milton Keynes and Artworks MK, to name a few.

It is thought that text donations could be worth £96 million annually by 2014.

If you are interested in signing up to the JustTextGiving scheme to boost your donations, please go online to; www.justtextgiving.co.uk

Mark spoke during an adjournment debate in parliament last night to call upon the Conservative’s previous pledges to ban the drug khat. He applied pressure on the Minister to carry out the promised action, which would see tighter controls on the 10 tonnes entering the UK every week, and better support for users of the drug.

Khat is a plant grown in East Africa and the Arab Peninsular. It is chewed primarily within Somali and Yemeni communities. The hallucinatory effects are achieved by chewing the drug for hours, with liver failure and psychosis being just two of the dangerous health implications. It is often the cause of unemployment and family breakdown, and Mark’s office has received countless complaints of violence and neighbourhood disturbance.

With over 6000 Somalis living in Milton Keynes, Mark has witnessed the detrimental effects of this drug on minority communities. In the debate Mark questioned why, in the 19 months of coalition government, nothing has been done to tackle this problem, whilst just this week the Netherlands have banned the drug. The UK now stands alone in being the only legal port of entry into Europe.

James Brokenshire, the Minister responsible, stated that there was no manifesto promise to ban the drug and that classification of khat was not part of the coalition government's programme. However, this issue is one which the government is concerned about and that they do not wish to kick it into the long grass. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the Government are required to look to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to provide advice on drug-related issues, including on the case for control based on available evidence at the time of its consideration.

The ACMD last formally considered the misuse of khat in 2005, when it advised against bringing the plant under the control of the 1971 Act and made recommendations for health and prevention approaches responding to local community needs, which the last Government accepted. In the light of those 2005 recommendations, the handling of khat-related issues has focused on the tailoring of health and education responses to local community needs, such as the availability of appropriate drug prevention materials and information to raise awareness among practitioners and khat-using communities.

Mark is going to continue to press this issue with the Minister and the coalition government.

New figures recently released show that Milton Keynes has had a rise in apprenticeship starts from 540 to 920 in the past two years.

Following an exchange in the chamber with John Hayes, the Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills where Mark pressed for a cut in the red tape businesses needed to wade through in order to gain an apprentice, Mark was delighted at the specific mention of Milton Keynes’ success.

The news follows Mercedes-Benz’s recent pledge of a further 330 apprenticeships to be offered at their Training Academy facilities on their Tongwell site.

Mark said “The staggering increase in apprenticeships is a great credit both to the cities local businesses and to the young people securing them. With a national average increase of 58%, Milton Keynes has proved yet again to be a trail blazer and I am delighted that so many young people are benefiting from gaining qualifications by hands on experience.”