Government may answer to ombudsman on consultation

The government could be dragged before the parliamentary ombudsman over claims it has failed to release adequate information for proper consultation on its flagship foundations policy.

Commons health select committee chair David Hinchliffe and Elizabeth Manero, chair of London Health Link, the regional association of London community health councils, are seeking to force the Department of Health to make more information - including risk assessments of the policy - public, under the code of open government.

So far DoH officials have refused, citing three separate exemptions under the code in correspondence with London Health Link.

Ms Manero told HSJ: 'This process was supposed to be open and transparent, but local people who are seeing their hospitals become foundation trusts know virtually nothing.

'People do not know what their local primary care trusts feel.

They do not know the real fears and concerns of the local strategic health authority. And none of us know anything about the assessments made by the DoH over the financial and managerial strength of these trusts, before they were allowed to apply.'

Mr Hinchliffe told HSJ he would be referring the case to parliamentary ombudsman Ann Abraham.

In a letter to London Health Link, NHS foundation trust unit head Clare Moriarty said the applications made by the association under the code of open government were based on 'fundamental misunderstandings' of the foundation legislation.

And she dismissed claims there had not been proper consultation on the policy, flagging up the duty placed on trusts to carry out local consultation.