Forget the DH site, the place to look for what’s happening in public and service user engagement is increasingly Communities and Local Government (CLG), which is churning out more useful stuff about civic engagement and community participation across the board. But should we welcome this uncritically, especially when it involves LINks? For instance, I noticed this in the most recent Consultation Institute newsletter:
“Gung-ho CLG seems so enthused by LINks that it seems keen to expand the concept beyond health and social care and is inviting Councils to submit proposals. Where this leads is anybody’s guess but the idea of networks of interested stakeholders is a powerful concept.”
Is this an idea linked (no pun intended) with CLG minister Hazel Blears - she of the recent community empowerment white paper and participatory budgeting experiments - to extend LINks straight across everything a Council does? Sounds like the kind of thing that the ”government in waiting” might be keen on too. And it is just the sort of development that some Councils might want for the wrong reasons. A single tick box solution to involvement and consultation based on “we talked to LINk” is appealing but it is reductionist and simplistic. We should be wary of this expansionist offer at least until we have some solid achievements with LINks in health and social care to point to and much more experience with the methodology of contacting, listening, understanding and transmitting views of local citizens. But as the CI newsletter rightly says, the idea is powerful and something to think about for the future.
In the meantime here is a just published CLG report on barriers which people feel keep them from being able to influence local decision making. Quite relevant for LINk and our understanding of participation generally I think. The biggest factor (barrier) is how much people trust their local council – perhaps an obvious conclusion but one that must be addressed where the answer is “not much”.
Readers could also dip into the CLG report on the New Deal for Communities pilots. It is mercifully short and summarises lots of what we know already – so it provides a good and recent benchmark – about barriers and incentives to participation. It talks about the “1% solution” we have previously discussed on this blog. There is an allied report on what works well in communicationswith specific groups in the community.
This is all good stuff for us to know for LINks and Hosts should have these reports on their electronic reading lists.
The CLG report also mentions that people’s willingness to contribute is affected by their previous experience with the organisation. For this reason, the way complaints are handled will have an influence on how people feel about making contact again. As MAC always says, complaints should not be seen as insignificant because their numbers are small but as both a vital indicator of what is going on AND an opportunity to form a long term dialogue with users and the public. And, for better or worse, people who complain tend to tell other people about their experience.
Andrew you are talking sense and advocating some caution about “LINks” . In Birmingham the problem with LINKs is they are not even being independently supported, for the Host has several contracts inside both the local NHS and Social Care .. Yes its well placed to be a “Networking Host” okay ..So much so that one wonders about the critical and independent side of the LINks and how that might survive . The Host is so embedded in the Health and Social Care bureaucracy.
The solution to more democracy in Health and Social Care is more fundamental than “LINks” and PPI mechanisms - it is State enabled Patient Choice and in mental health (the field of UserWatch’s interest ) for instance I could see this becoming far more efficient - more locally accountable than all the system delivery cogbotics and inhouse “Users Voices” orgs many Users have been watching . However the fashion at the moment is bureau-networking and the network-individual, but this is irrelevant to most patients and is another sign of a notional health democratic practice without consumer choice and the driver of that enhancing qualititive experience ..
Somehow I think that has gone out of the window don’t you ? And what will take over is a bit of token accountability and the “meeting culture” of the NHS and Social Care systems. In mental health frankly it amounts to more subtle oppression but that’s par for the course if you cannot get purchasing power outside of the State system supply sides ..