www.publicinvolvement.org.uk

Good things must come to an end and so it is with our regular updating of our Patient & Public Involvement Resources page which M-A-C created and periodically updated since 2003. We remain very committed as a business and as individuals to the principles of user involvement and will continue to publish regularly on the topic.

The Resources page was initially compiled as part of M-A-C's support for Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust to help identify the wide range of patient and public engagement activities going on inside and outside the organisation. It grew rather in the manner of Topsy thereafter as PPI's star rose in the NHS firmament. Sadly, recent events suggest that this particular star may now be going through one of its periodic eclipses. The lack of clarity around the creation of Local Involvement Networks (LINks) and the slough of despond into which many Patients Forums have fallen - through no fault of their volunteer members - are not encouraging predictors for the future of effective involvement. The Health Select Committee's report into PPI earlier this year makes sobering reading:

"Abolishing established structures and creating new and untested institutions has not proved successful in recent years." (www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmhealth.htm)

NCI - over to you in Warwick

All is not lost. We now have the NHS National Centre for Involvement (NCI). Part of NCI's remit is to identify what works in user and public involvement and to publicise it. So we look to them to take over the role of bringing the best of PPI resources to a wider audience. Check out their Patient-Citizen Exchange if you haven't already. There is much semi-virgin territory for NCI to stake out: patient participation in primary care practices linked to practice-based commissioning, the inexorable growth of Foundation Trusts and their Governors and Members and the emerging issue of members and owners in social enterprises active in health to name but three that M-A-C is particularly interested in.

Our PPI Resources page will continue to exist at this link - http://www.mooreadamsoncraig.co.uk/public-involvement-resources.html - but it will no longer be updated. We still think it's a pretty good place to start if you are new to this body of literature.

Challenging received wisdom

But that doesn't mean we can resist plugging a good piece about lay involvement when we see one. The think tank Demos has an excellent study on what lay members can contribute to 'expert bodies' which we think is quite helpful. See The Received Wisdom: Opening up expert advice. Demos. 2006. PDF download from www.demos.co.uk/publications/receivedwisdom

NAO points a way forward

We remain very keen on the type of focused involvement strategy we discussed in our blog piece in February. The NAO report identified what they called 'focussed shared work initiatives' and this struck a chord with us because this is the approach we have adopted in our work with the Motor Neurone Disease Association. The focus is on what we are calling 'commissioning intelligence' where the views of people with MND and those that care for them are central to the service commissioned and provided. We said then that this was a good way forward and all the evidence we have been collecting since points in that direction.