LOCAL MP QUESTIONS SIDE-LINING OF PATIENT WATCHDOG

Tony Baldry MP decries downgrading of patient involvement in NHS

North Oxfordshire MP, Tony Baldry, has raised concerns over the downgrading of NHS patient watchdogs in Oxfordshire, following the announcement that Public and Patient Involvement Forums would be scrapped in favour of a new scheme called LINKS.

LINKS will not be up and running until September at the earliest - missing a crucial time for the local NHS with threats to some services at the Horton General Hospital and the renewed push to get beds for a community hospital in Bicester. 

In response to a parliamentary question tabled by Tony Baldry, the Health Minister Anne Keen MP said they were "consulting with existing patient and public involvement forums, the voluntary sector and other stakeholders on both the Terms of Reference for the LINk and the detail of the service specification for the LINk host organisation" with "the LINk being formally established by September."

Commenting, Tony Baldry MP said:

“We used to have a perfectly good Community Health Council.  The Government scrapped that because they didn’t like CHCs criticising them.  Then came along the Patient and Public Involvement Forums.  No sooner were they established and getting to work than they too were scrapped by the Government.  They are now going to be replaced by something called LINk – Local Involvement Networks. “

“I have asked the Secretary of State for Health when he expected this new body to be up and running in Oxfordshire and I received an Answer which is complete gobbledegook – what do phrases like “ . . . the detail of the service specification for the LINk host organisation” mean?  Any why does a body which is meant to represent patients and the public on the NHS in Oxfordshire require an outside host organisation?  The fact of the matter is that this is a responsibility that has been thrust upon the County Council to the dismay of everyone who up until now has been involved in monitoring the NHS in Oxfordshire, and is yet a further weakening of the ability of local people to hold the NHS to account”.