136. Evidence submitted by Peter Robinson
(PPI 15)
INTRODUCTION
Until the end of December 2006 I was an interim
Non-Executive Director of the North Nottinghamshire Teaching Primary
Care Trust and had served on Ashfield Primary Care Trust as a
Non-Executive Director for nearly six years. I also chair Central
Nottinghamshire MIND and The Carers Council—Allies in Adult
Mental Health. Over the last eight years I have been actively
involved in the development of health services in the Ashfield
and Mansfield areas, through these organisations but also through
various carers strategic forums. I have experienced the difficulties
of getting members of the public involved in health and social
care service development. The PPI forums have played a very active
role in trying to exert a patient and public influence which I
have supported as a member of the PCT Board and through local
consultations. I welcome the development of a structure which
gives the patient and publics a more direct and flexible say in
how local services develop and which holds the Primary Care Trusts
to account for their performance.
My views on some of the questions posed in the
Terms of Reference of the enquiry are below:
1. LINks representation on North Notts Teaching
Primary Care Trust (PCT) should be two members, one for the North
of the county (Ashfield, Mansfield, Newark & Sherwood) and
one for the South (Broxtowe & Hucknall, Gedling, Rushcliffe).
2. LINks should link with the existing community
health and social care forums in the county, and with existing
regional forums. Membership of the LINk would be drawn from these
groups which would include the existing PCT Public Focus committee,
PALS, Ashfield Links Forum as part of the Local Strategic Partnership
(LSP) and Mansfield Strategic Partnership, other Acute Trust and
Mental Health Trust forums, and Practice Based Commissioning (PBC)
Cluster group forums within the PCT area. It should also include
representation from the following types of organisation in the
PCT area:
— Voluntary health and social care
organisations.
— Private health and social care providers.
— Community organisations (Citizens
Advice Bureaux, Sure Start, Womens Centre, Womens Institutes,
Townswomens Guild, Hospital volunteering organisations, ethnic
minority groups, etc).
— Local government Overview and Scrutiny
Committees.
3. LINks should provide flexible ways of
engaging with the public rather than focus on meetings or committees.
They should encourage the development of forums in PBC clusters.
4. The areas of focus of the LINk would
be:
— Obtaining the views of the public
about health and social care services and feeding these back to
statutory organisations (PCT and Adult Social care & Health)
and the membership of the LINk.
— Providing a public voice in health
and social care decisions on investment in care services and changes
in services (and not just through the PPI representatives on the
PCT Board).
— Ensuring that service commissioning
structures involve the public in decision making, and that multiple
commissioning organisations are effective in meeting public needs.
— Through an inspection function, monitor
the quality of service provision and feed the outcomes of the
inspection into PCT clinical governance processes and the LINk
consultation processes.
5. Funding for the LINks should come through
LSP's.
6. LINks should be able to carry out their
inspection function in any service, subject to individuals meeting
the requirements of CRB or other checks (the document mentions
Childrens services being excluded from inspection).
Peter Robinson
2 January 2007
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