Recent posts on the Public Involvement Blog

Ownership Matters in Foundation Trusts    (September 1, 2010)

Creating “the largest and most vibrant social enterprise sector in the world” particularly by giving more freedom to Foundation Trusts is a key objective of the policy blitz known as Liberating the NHS (in England).   Mr Lansley has also said FTs would have ‘characteristics’ of social enterprise,... [Continue reading]

Complaints Up – Good or Bad News?    (August 25, 2010)

Complaints up! Shock horror! I can imagine what tomorrow’s press will make of the NHS Information Centre report on English written complaints showing a 13.4% year on year rise, breaking through the 100,000 barrier. The accompanying comments from Tim Straughan the chief executive try to put this... [Continue reading]

Well-timed charitable appeal raises concern about use of NHS database    (August 23, 2010)

Got a nice letter from Tim Smart today. He is the chief exec of King’s College Hospital here in London, England. The letter introduced him and told me about the existence and the work of the King’s College Hospital Charity. An entrepreneurial reaction to budgeted cuts. I lose no sleep over... [Continue reading]

Who You Going to Call? Ghostbusters!!    (August 23, 2010)

Their number for students of trivia was 555 2368. Remember that for the next time you need them. Add it to your list of essential numbers. I called the police the other day. My bedroom window had two small holes in the outer pane of the double-glazed unit. Stones? Airgun pellets? Should I call the police?... [Continue reading]

BMA to GPs – PPI integral to consortia commissioning decisions    (August 23, 2010)

The first statement from the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee about consortia commissioning responsibilities appeared last week.  We recommend you read it. MAC’s verdict Undoubtedly it’s a good start, but it will have to do better as it goes along especially as some £80bn of taxpayers... [Continue reading]

On my face; in my face    (August 10, 2010)

Operations on your face are very much in your face. It is an oddly intimate atmosphere where strangers are very close  to you, murmuring in your ear advising you to close your eyes. The knife makes no noise – nothing like the whine of the dentist with their noisy drills and sucking tubes.... [Continue reading]

Liberating Primary Care    (August 9, 2010)

If you are not White Papered out already, we’d like to offer up our thoughts about patient and public engagement in primary care.  Our views on Local Democratic Legitimacy in Health, LINks and HealthWatch are here and here.  The focus now switches to GP consortia and primary care practices, the grass... [Continue reading]

The Wrappings on Local Health Watch    (August 5, 2010)

Thanks to Jeremy Taylor for raising in a comment on the LINks and Healthwatch post the thorny issue of Local Health Watch (LHW) and the proposed relationship to local authority funders.  He said: HealthWatch should be funded through local authorities but not accountable to them. How can you be accountable... [Continue reading]

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]