More on Patient Feedback
Civitas, 8 June 2009
Last week we wrote about the purpose of patient choice as a policy aim and its potential outcomes in practice. Interestingly, the Health Service Journal has just reported that Local Involvement Networks (LINks), the government’s newest patient and public involvement initiative, claim they are not receiving enough financial and directional support from the DH.
LINks are intended to give citizens a stronger voice in how health and social care services are delivered. Every local authority that provides social services is given funding by the government (to a total of £84 million between 2008 and 2011) to establish these networks. Under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, authorities must make contractual arrangements with a ‘host’ organisation that will run all technical and administrative aspects of the network and its related activities. LINks are responsible for discovering what patients want, monitoring local services, and looking into specific issues of concern to the community. Primary care trusts, NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts are legally obliged to allow LINks representatives to enter and view their facilities. They are also required to respond to recommendations made by LINks and to be explicit about what actions they will take as a result.
This recent claim of lack of support is made by the National Association of LINks Members (NALM), an independent body created by self-appointed LINKs representatives and former patient forum members who seek to represent these groups on a national level. They state the association was formed after repeated requests for national PPI (patient and public involvement) leadership were ignored, and they now seem to be pleading for clear communication from the DH regarding national contact points.
This poses a serious question; if patient feedback is so adamantly desired and respected, why isn’t the DH responding to these unmet expectations?
It is worrying because various programmes and processes for encouraging patient participation in NHS policy have come and gone throughout the past decade. LINks came into being in April 2008 to take the place of Patient Forums and the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (CPPIH), which operated from September 2003. The CPPIH had been created to replace what were formerly Community Health Councils. Somewhere along the line, local government Overview and Scrutiny Committees for health also played a part, and still do in some areas, but the DH seems to have forgotten their existence, with the last related policy briefing dating back to 2007. How do they fit in with LINks? Has anyone had experience with the potential overlap in purpose and responsibility?
Perhaps new health minister Andy Burnham will take a lead in empowering these new LINks, clarifying formal communication pathways with local practice-based patient committees, trust governors boards, and designated NHS bodies. The DH can’t ignore or disassemble these groups again the next time it wants to take on a major policy overhaul—not if it wants to keep people’s trust and uphold the credibility of its aim to create a ‘patient-centred’ NHS.