A report by a committee of MSPs expressed concerns over plans to introduce direct elections to health boards. It said that pilots of the plan should go ahead in two areas, but that alternative public participation schemes should also be tested.
Source: Stage 1 Report on the Health Boards (Membership and Elections) (Scotland) Bill, 7th Report 2008, SP Paper 185, Scottish Parliament Health and Sport Committee, available from Blackwell's Bookshop (0131 622 8283)
Links: Report | Evidence | BBC report
Date: 2008-Dec
A discussion paper examined local accountability in the health service, and how public and patient involvement (PPI) should be implemented. It considered the moral, political, and financial imperatives for local accountability, and what it meant in practice at the collective and individual levels. Effective PPI could make a practical difference at three levels: to individual healthcare; to the way family doctor practices delivered care; and to how primary care trusts planned and provided services.
Source: Whose NHS Is It Anyway?, NHS Alliance (01777 869080)
Links: NHS Alliance press release
Date: 2008-Oct
A think-tank report examined research into the role of patients in the healthcare system.
Source: David Furness, Barney Gough, Niall Maclean, Lyndsay Mountford and Charitini Stavropoulou, Patients in the Health System, Social Market Foundation (020 7222 7060)
Links: Report
Date: 2008-Oct
A report examined ways of promoting participation by people from seldom-heard groups in the provision of social care services.
Source: Paul Robson, Alice Sampson, Nnamdi Dime, Louisa Hernandez and Rachael Litherland, Seldom Heard: Developing inclusive participation in social care, Social Care Institute for Excellence (020 7089 6840)
Links: Report | Community Care report
Date: 2008-Sep
The government responded to a report by a committee of MPs on user involvement in public services. It said that achieving 'world class' public services required more power to be placed in the hands of citizens, thereby driving services to become more responsive and personalized, and providing strong incentives for services to innovate and improve.
Source: User Involvement in Public Services: Government Response to the Committee's Sixth Report, Eighth Special Report (Session 2007-08), HC 998, House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Response | MPs report
Date: 2008-Jul
A report said that people wanted to be able to influence public services policy, and would do more if they felt it would make a difference: but they did not always come forward spontaneously, so public bodies needed to be creative and pro-active about listening. Most public bodies were better at providing information than they were at listening or responding to people's views about how to make things work better. A comprehensive strategy for involvement was needed.
Source: Putting People into Public Services: Involving people in policy, National Consumer Council (020 7730 3469)
Links: Link removed
Date: 2008-Jul
A report examined ways of engaging citizens in the regulation and inspection of public services, as a way of enabling regulators to deliver improved services to communities.
Source: Putting People into Public Services: Better regulation and inspection, National Consumer Council (020 7730 3469)
Links: Link removed
Date: 2008-Jun
A report by a committee of MPs said that involving public service users by allowing them to control or influence the way in which services were provided could improve service quality, make for more appropriate services, and increase people's satisfaction with public services. It was, however, still 'early days' for many of the stronger forms of user involvement, such as individual budgets in social care. Initial evidence about such initiatives seemed promising: but there was a need for comprehensive and rigorous monitoring and evaluation, particularly regarding their cost-effectiveness.
Source: User Involvement in Public Services, Sixth Report (Session 2007-08), HC 410, House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report
Date: 2008-May
An article examined the idea that increasing civic engagement led to better public services. Local councils which aimed to promote understanding of citizenship among the public were found to be more likely to have higher service performance: but those which aimed to increase citizen engagement in local governance were associated with lower performance in deprived areas.
Source: Rhys Andrews, Richard Cowell and James Downe, 'Support for active citizenship and public service performance: an empirical analysis of English local authorities', Policy & Politics, Volume 36 Number 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2008-Apr
A report criticized plans to replace National Health Service patient and public involvement forums with 'local involvement networks' from April 2008. It said that the networks would be poorly funded, would reduce the capacity for patients and the public to exercise genuine influence over healthcare, and might be too closely allied to local authorities to be independent of local politics. Their lack of national co-ordination would also not allow sharing of information at a national level.
Source: Public and Patient Involvement in the NHS, British Medical Association (020 7387 4499)
Links: Report | BMA press release
Date: 2008-Mar
The government began consultation on a a strategy for giving people in every local authority area a greater say on how public money was spent, including exploring for the first time the use of 'community kitties' for projects to fight crime and tackle obesity.
Source: Participatory Budgeting: A draft national strategy – Giving more people a say in local spending, Department for Communities and Local Government (web publication only)
Links: Consultation document | DCLG press release | Community Care report
Date: 2008-Mar
A literature review for the Scottish Government examined the theory of 'public value', and outlined how public participation could contribute to the process of authorizing what public managers did, establishing priorities and decision-making, and measuring the performance of public organizations.
Source: Alexandra Albert and Eleanor Passmore, Public Value and Participation: A literature review for the Scottish Government, Scottish Government (web publication only)
Links: Literature Review
Date: 2008-Mar
An article examined how the policy of user-involvement was interpreted in health service organizations, and sought to identify factors that influenced how user-involvement was put into practice. User-involvement might not automatically lead to improved service quality: healthcare professionals and service users understood and practised it in different ways according to individual ideologies, circumstances, and needs. Given the resource implications of undertaking user-involvement in service development, there was a need for critical debate on the purpose of such involvement as well as better evidence of the benefits claimed for it.
Source: Nina Fudge, Charles Wolfe and Christopher McKevitt, 'Assessing the promise of user involvement in health service development: ethnographic study', British Medical Journal, 29 January 2008
Links: Article
Date: 2008-Jan
A report said that a new regulatory framework was needed to encourage local healthcare providers to involve the public more in monitoring service provision. A major rethink of commissioning was needed, in order to consider how commissioning could influence service design, and how the user perspective could inform the process. There should be minimum standards for user and public involvement.
Source: Abena Dadze-Arthur, Engaging People in Healthcare Regulation: A route map for action, National Consumer Council (020 7730 3469)
Links: Report
Date: 2008-Jan