Patient and public involvement
Posted in:
Patient and public involvement |
Acute Care
9-Apr-2009 10:11 am
Are patients and the public sufficiently involved in healthcare? HSJ this week reports on local involvement networks which, by many accounts, are struggling to get off the ground. Are your local networks making themselves heard? On the provider side Mid Staffordshire foundation trust's member and governor system failed to identify its failings. Elsewhere, a London foundation is enthusiastically engaging its members to defend its stroke services – but is this appropriate?
1-May-2009 7:45 pm
After working closely with my local trust on many projects and putting in very long hours it appears that we are no longer needed. I worked alongside them under the former PPI now LINKS . I feel that sometimes we are included when it is deemed fit to do ( to tick the right boxes)
In light of mids staffs i feel that the public should have a great deal more input into trusts/FT, especially when as patients we have been through the patient journey and have witnessed first hand the failings (if any) .. it is equally as important to praise the trust where praise is due. I have worked in the nhs and it can be stressfull, tiring and certainly made me ask myself the question "am i valued" .. short staff, overwork and lack of resources are comments that have come to light. So for Goodness sake lets not have another mids staff catastrophy and GET the patients more involved.
25-Jun-2009 9:42 pm
I worked with Community Health Councils, was a manager of a PPI Forum's support organisation and am now a manager of a Host organisation supporting a large LINk, so I feel I have a fairly good grasp of how PPI has changed over the years. My experience is that LINks really are getting to grips with the important business of empowering communities to have their say - and be noticed. In my area alone, the local LINk has managed to contribute significantly - the LINk's intervention meant that additional funding was made available for extra NHS dentists in one area; in another, it meant that the local authority was forced to consult local people properly on changes to day care services for elderly people (that includes listening to what they say and doing something about it). LINks, such as the one I work in (and am a member of), have really made a difference in a very short time and the regional experience is that the NHS is taking LINks seriously (LAs will catch up - PPI is fairly new to them). LINks are responsive to the needs of local people. They are also starting to organise themselves regionally (there is no national organisation, despite one independent political pressure group's false claims).
I would urge people to get involved in their local LINk - even if it's just writing their views on a postcard at a community event. And I congratulate the hard working staff (and that includes health and social care staff) and volunteers who are committed and passionate about making this system work.
30-Jun-2009 6:43 pm
If by "one independent political pressure group" the last contributor means the National Association of LINks' Members, he or she is merely adding to the vituperative dismissal of the only lay organization of LINks participants which has been forthcoming. So many staff working for "hosts" seem to be prejudiced against either a national organization for LINks, NALM generally, or both. Quite why, other than an infantile insecurity about a challenge to their power and authority over their local volunteers remains unclear to me.
Anyone who has been through this appalling pantomime of PPI over the last 8 years or so knows that there has to be a national focus for the actual LINks participants, ie the volunteers, those who do not do this because they are paid to but because they believe that lay scrutiny of the NHS and social services is vital if disasters like Stafford are to be avoided. Whatever these hosts are afraid of, it's time they got over it, and stopped trying to poison local volunteers against the one organization which could prevent LINks becoming yet another branch of a hopelessly ineffective third sector, by providing resources and a forum for people who are not just out to make a career, but to make a change.
30-Jun-2009 7:31 pm
Oh dear, quite a knee jerk reaction! From Robert's rather aggressive (and offensive) remarks, I'll assume that he is a NALM member - this is the normal response of this so called national organisation. I am a member of 2 LINks (a volunteer and not paid). LINks are local organisations, accountable to local communities. The proof will be in the pudding, but remember Robert, bullies rarely win in the long term.
2-Jul-2009 0:16 am
Bullies? The bullies in this farce are proving themselves to be hosts who try to corral their members into obedience. As it happens, I wasn't a member of NALM until very recently. I joined it in the end partly because there isn't anything else, and partly because it seemed to me to make sense.
I don't know what was supposed to be "offensive" in the above. It reflects my experience of a managed voluntary sector which consists of thought-policed conformism. What is offensive is your suggestion in your previous post that NALM has made false claims, ie has lied. That story about motes and beams comes to mind.
3-Jul-2009 2:02 pm
It is pretty obvious that LINKs need a regional and national structure if they are to make a difference. Despite a lot of talk about devolved decision making the NHS is still an extremely top driven organisation and we need an effective national lay voice. It is pretty clear than many people in the Dept of Health do not want such a thing - or anything that might challenge their account of the world. The National Association of LINKs Members is weak and fallible, but it is the only national organisation we have. If people don't like what it does maybe they should suggest an alternative. Stand for election on a different platform. And stop hiding behind the cloak of anonymity.
Share
