Archive for April, 2009

The Healthcare Commisssion as was thought it worth adding a question mark to the title of its last publication on patient and public engagement under its old colours before merging into the CQC. People writing reviews on how well patient and public engagement is working usually find it necessary to pose questions about the amount of progress made and degree of achievement.

You can see why this should be the case with findings like the one where 98% of healthcare organisations state that they met Standard 17 ( the standard about taking on board the views of patients, carers and others when “designing, planning, delivering and improving healthcare services.”) while 25% of all comments from others such as patient forums and Oversight and Scrutiny Committees (the local government committee that takes an interest in these things and is heavily involved with our LINk) were negative. Some 80% of the views expressed were about trust failing to seek the views of patients and public. There seems to be a definite contradiction there as well as a reminder that a tick in the ‘standards met’ box is not necessarily a guarantee that all is well.

The out-going Commission has sent out a classic end of term ‘could do better’ report – lots of good examples and agreement about what good practice looks like but still a way to go.

If you have time to take on board almost 100 pages of good advice, it is worthwhile read for all those interested in making a more effective reality of the theory of public engagement.

The PDF linked in the text above, is available also available here for download.
Listening, learning, working together – The Healthcare Commission (PDF, 872Kb)

Today ( this is not an April Fool) sees the launch of the Care Quality Commission bringing together three predecessor regulators – the Healthcare Commission, the Commission for Social Care Inspection and the Mental Health Act Commission. In creating this new supersize regulator, the government hopes to make health and social care work better together with the help of common quality standards and by putting ‘the rights and interests of people who use services and their carers at the heart of our work’.

The Wandsworth and all the other LINks in England will be taking them up on that.