The government responded to consultation on a new framework designed to ensure that the needs, preferences, and involvement of local people - including those that were seldom heard - were central to the planning, development, and delivery of health and social care services.
Source: Government Response to 'A Stronger Local Voice', Department of Health (08701 555455)
Links: Response | DH press release | Consultation document
Date: 2006-Dec
The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill was published. The Bill was designed to: strengthen local leadership and democracy (through 4-year terms for leaders, the option of all-out elections every 4 years, and new powers for overview and scrutiny committees); empower communities (through stronger community governance arrangements, and a revised duty on local authorities to involve local people in tailoring local services and policies); and strengthen local partnerships (by putting local area agreements on a statutory footing, with named partners under a duty to co-operate in agreeing local targets and have regard to them in the delivery of services). It made provision for the abolition of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, and of Patients' Forums: in their place, it imposed a duty on local authorities to make contractual arrangements for the involvement of people in the commissioning, provision, and scrutiny of health services and social services.
Source: Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, Department for Communities and Local Government, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Text of Bill | Explanatory notes | DCLG press release | LGA press release
Date: 2006-Dec
A report examined the state of user networking and knowledge in the areas of health and social care. It said that successful networking and the development, sharing and mainstreaming of service user knowledge were closely interrelated; and that the two were inextricably involved with meaningful user involvement in most service users minds.
Source: Fran Branfield and Peter Beresford, Making User Involvement Work: Supporting service user networking and knowledge, York Publishing Services for Joseph Rowntree Foundation, available from York Publishing Services Ltd (01904 430033)
Links: Report | JRF Findings | Community Care report
Date: 2006-Nov
A report said that many patient information leaflets and websites did not provide sufficiently accurate and detailed information to assist patients in making decisions about their healthcare.
Source: Angela Coulter et al., Assessing the Quality of Information to Support People in Making Decisions about their Health and Healthcare, Picker Institute Europe (01865 208100)
Links: Report | Picker Institute press release
Date: 2006-Nov
A new book examined the contribution that citizens could realistically be expected to make to public policy decisions, drawing on the lessons from an ethnographic study of a public involvement initiative in the health service - the Citizens Council of NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence).
Source: Celia Davies, Margaret Wetherell and Elizabeth Barnett, Citizens at the Centre: Deliberative participation in healthcare decisions, Policy Press, available from Marston Book Services (01235 465500)
Links: Summary
Date: 2006-Oct
The Court of Appeal ruled that patients had not been properly consulted before a primary care trust gave a contract to provide family doctor services to a private company. The trust was ordered to start the tendering process from scratch, with full patient consultation.
Source: R (Smith) v North Eastern Derbyshire Primary Care Trust (Secretary of State for Health intervening), Court of Appeal 23 August 2006
Links: Law report | UNISON press release | Guardian report
Date: 2006-Aug
A report said that patient involvement could significantly improve healthcare outcomes and efficiency: but the government and healthcare professionals had been slow to adopt what was proven to work in practice.
Source: Angela Coulter and Jo Ellins, Patient-focussed Interventions: A review of the evidence, Picker Institute Europe (01865 208100) and Health Foundation
Links: Report | Picker Institute press release
Date: 2006-Aug
The government announced plans to give patients more say over how their local health services were organized and run. Primary care trusts would for the first time be required to formally respond to public petitions if more than one per cent of the local community were unhappy with a particular health service. The plans were published alongside new guidance on commissioning by primary care trusts.
Source: A Stronger Local Voice: A framework for creating a stronger local voice in the development of health and social care services, Department of Health (08701 555455) | Health Reform in England: Update and Commissioning Framework, Department of Health
Links: Local voice plan | Commissioning framework | Annex | Hansard | DH press release | CPPIH press release | LGA press release | NHS Alliance press release | Kings Fund press release | DHN press release | CBI press release | BBC report
Date: 2006-Jul
An article examined the government's 'consumerist' approach to healthcare modernization.
Source: Janet Newman and Elizabeth Vidler, 'Discriminating customers, responsible patients, empowered users: consumerism and the modernisation of health care', Journal of Social Policy, Volume 35 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2006-Apr
A Member of the Scottish Parliament introduced a Bill requiring more than half of National Health Service board members in Scotland to be subject to direct election.
Source: Health Board Elections (Scotland) Bill, Bill Butler MSP, TSO (0870 606 5566)
Links: Text of Bill | BBC report
Date: 2006-Apr
A report said that patients in the United Kingdom played less of a role in decisions about their own healthcare than those in other developed nations.
Source: Angela Coulter, Engaging Patients in Their Healthcare: How is the UK doing relative to other countries?, Picker Institute Europe (01865 208100)
Links: Report | Picker Institute press release | BBC report
Date: 2006-Apr
A survey found that most people (76 per cent) had never been asked about what they wanted from local National Health Service organizations. 50 per cent felt that they had no power to influence local NHS services, and 26 per cent thought it was a waste of time to involve ordinary people in the first place.
Source: Press release 30 March 2006, Developing Patient Partnerships (020 7383 6715)
Links: DPP press release
Date: 2006-Apr
An article examined some of the underlying concepts, definitions, and issues underpinning public involvement policies in health. It proposed a set of criteria and questions that needed to be addressed in order to allow for the evaluation of public involvement strategies and their impact on the health policy process.
Source: Suzanne Wait and Ellen Nolte, 'Public involvement policies in health: exploring their conceptual basis', Health Economics, Policy and Law, Volume 1 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2006-Apr
A report evaluated a project designed to allow young people to be involved in the planning and provision of their health treatment.
Source: Evaluating Children's Health Services: The adolescent user perspective, Action for Sick Children (01455 845600)
Links: ASC press release
Date: 2006-Feb
An article said that health services organizations could more fully fulfil their central health-enhancing purposes through community development efforts.
Source: Beaufort Longest, 'The community development potential of large health services organizations', Community Development Journal, Volume 41 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2006-Jan
