A long hot summer for user and citizen engagement?

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... 
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Neuro Knees Up or Knockback?

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... 
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Head to head on GP commissioning

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... 
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MAC’s Eight New Laws of LINks – and an acknowledgement to Dr Einstein

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).... 
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Culture shift or engagement dressage?

In his first speech as Secretary of State for Health this week, Andrew Lansley backed a “nothing about us, without us” approach to patient engagement.  Sounds good. But here’s the big unknown: is this a genuine culture shift or just clever patient engagement dressage?  That’s what trained... 
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All change please – is consultation the enemy of decision-making?

Something I have noticed in my twelve years as the parent of school aged children is that there is nothing schools like more than to rush through change in the dying weeks of the summer term. Focus on the beach and the barbie Everyone is a bit tired, the beach is becoming increasingly attractive and... 
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