Recent posts on the Public Involvement Blog

Health Watch and LINks – synergy needed but confusion predicted    (July 27, 2010)

Local Democratic Legitimacy in Health is part of the flurry of papers comprising the policy blizzard that is Liberating the NHS, the white paper (with a very green tinge) published on 12 July setting out the so-called bottom up reorganisation of the English NHS. Because this part of the suite of papers... [Continue reading]

That’s the way to do it?    (July 25, 2010)

A debate is ramping up in the GP press – Pulse online is required viewing – about how (or even if) GP commissioners can make savings by doing things better vis a vis secondary care (aka hospitals) than PCTs generally manage to achieve.  Everyone knows that acute trusts are past masters at maximising... [Continue reading]

MAC neurological clients praised for commissioning innovation    (July 23, 2010)

It’s great when the Secretary of State for Health singles out a MAC client for praise.  It happened this week in front of the Health Select Committee, no less, when Mr Lansley was giving evidence about his proposals in Liberating the NHS for instituting radical bottom-up changes to commissioning... [Continue reading]

Freedom NHS – an Electric LINk for a Citizen Commissioner?    (July 19, 2010)

If you can get past the alliterative battering of the title of their newsletter, the Delib Digital Democracy Digest (well you were warned), there is some interesting stuff about the Your Freedom site calling for citizens’ ideas – their reactions, uses etc. What it set off for me was whether... [Continue reading]

Turning government on its head – we hope so    (July 13, 2010)

To coincide with the publication of Liberating the NHS, the Department of Health has published its departmental priorities in the form of a Structural Reform Plan.  SRPs are required by the Coalition Government from all government departments. Head stands SRPs are designed, in the word’s of the... [Continue reading]

Liberation root and branch style    (July 13, 2010)

Liberating the NHS the new Health White Paper on “equity and excellence” could turn out to be, in Chris Ham’s prophetic words today, the “biggest organisational upheaval in the health service, probably, since its inception”.  This is about England only of course: the contrast with... [Continue reading]

Big Society: big break or big bore?    (July 10, 2010)

Time to stop pouring cold tea down the plughole? Few of us who work in the public engagement world could fail to have been intrigued by the new government’s apparent enthusiasm to involve The People in its decision-making.  Intrigued, and in most cases I suspect, more than a little sceptical.... [Continue reading]

Whose NHS Is It Anyway?    (July 8, 2010)

What does it mean to be one of the owners of the most important public service this country has?  Most people using the NHS don’t think about that question and neither do the 1m+ people who work in it.  That’s a big part of the problem and that is what has to change if the NHS is to meet the demands... [Continue reading]

The NHS Semiosphere – New Model Participation    (July 5, 2010)

A number of transformative journeys for both patient and the NHS communities are set out in a recent Health Foundation report published as an HSJ supplement Mutuality ‘The patient will see you now”. It is tempting to dismiss this report as yet another proof that writing about patient... [Continue reading]

A long hot summer for user and citizen engagement?    (June 29, 2010)

The budget sparked a debate  about postponing retirement and getting your pensions.  Elder citizens and users who are involved in public engagement must be heard in any such  debate about retirement ages and reform of the job market. They frequently form a majority  of volunteers in citizen participant... [Continue reading]

Neuro Knees Up or Knockback?    (June 24, 2010)

News of Pathway Commissioning Packs and Tariffs We are always looking to see how patient engagement and participation are reflected in official policies and local practices.   But these issues took a back seat on our latest trawl through the revision to the 2010-11 Operating Framework (ROF)  for... [Continue reading]

Head to head on GP commissioning    (June 23, 2010)

As a regular contributor to Roy Lilly’s NHSmanagers.net site, I did a not-overly-serious head to head this week about GP commissioning with Lynn Young, a long time mate who is the RCN’s Primary Healthcare Adviser.  You can follow the rough and tumble here and tell us what you think on this issue... [Continue reading]

MAC’s Eight New Laws of LINks – and an acknowledgement to Dr Einstein    (June 23, 2010)

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  It’s a curse the new Coalition Government must avoid when it gets around to considering its plans for Healthwatch in England and what it intends doing with Local Involvement Networks (LINks).... [Continue reading]