National Centre for Involvement

LINks Exchange Newsletter Issue 17

There are three main topics in the latest issue

Campaign

The Department of Health has launched a campaign to ‘promote the meaning and merits of LINks – among the whole community and among health and social care care professionals. with the ultimate aim of encouraging engagement and participation in your LINk’ The Department is using a social PR company – Forster – who will be coming out to LINks to work with them on this.

Last change to have your say on Quality Accounts

In High Quality Care for All, Lord Darzi said publishing quality performance would help patients and their carers make better informed choices about health care and allow clinical teams to benchmark, compare and improve their performance.

High Quality Care for All proposed that all providers of NHS care should produce Quality Accounts to provide the public with information on the quality of care they provide. The Department of Health has introduced legislation to require the publication of Quality Accounts from April 2010. Designing the format and content of Quality Accounts, is being facilitated by the DH, and steered by stakeholders, including the regulators, NHS management, clinicians, professional organisations, patient groups and the public.

The lessons learnt in a pilot from producing Quality Reports , alongside those from the Quality Accounts engagement process, are being used to develop the detailed guidance that the Department of Health aims to publish in early 2010, following a consultation on the proposed content of Quality Accounts over the autumn 2009. This process will also inform the Care Quality Commission and Monitor in their approach to developing the regulatory system for healthcare.

In September the Department of Health launched a consultation which you can find here.

The consultation closes on Thursday 10th December.

Indemnity Update

A number of LINks have asked about this topic and whether LINks are covered by a indemnity policy set up by the Secretary of State. Some LINks have concerns that an authorised representative making a report following a visit might be reluctant to make a candid and honest report in case the business owner makes a claim for defamation against them personally.

The answer is no – it is up to the local authority – Wandsworth in our case. If you feel that you might need such a policy, you can see the advice on the LINks Exchange website and take it up with the LINks office.

Newsletter 13 from the LINks Exchange picks up on the Government response to the reports it commissioned after the failures of care in the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. The newsletter says
“The Government has promised to give extra support to LINks across the country including guidance for the pubic on ‘how to be heard’. There are also plans for a national publicity campaign to promote awareness of the role of LINks in influencing local decision making around NHS services.

NHS organisations are expected to publicly demonstrate that they are putting patients and the public at the heart of designing the services in their areas.

As a result, the Government will, “require relevant NHS organisations to publish a new annual statement of involvement to demonstrate how they are implementing the legal duty to involve patients and the public that came into law in November last year. We would expect the statement to include a commentary by the relevant local organisations that represent patients and the public, including the LINk and the Local Authority’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

“For acute providers, in producing their quality accounts, we would expect them to draw data from a range of sources, including direct patient feedback. We also want to ensure LINks are able to comment on quality accounts by requiring providers to consult them on their draft reports, as well as encouraging an ongoing, year round dialogue about the quality of care.”

There is also a reminder about the NCI Summer Conference on 2nd July in London to discuss the future of PPI and two blogs from different LINks on their experience of the first year. On the LINk forums, the discussion about CRB checks is still the leader with 46 posts on this topic.

Finally there are two more LINk Guides published – 18 and 19
Guide 18 is about the health and social care structures and organisations that LINks have to work with and Guide19 is addressed to health and social care managers and talks about how they should work with LINks to the benefit of their users.

Your nominations are invited by the NCI (National Centre for Involvement) who want examples of innovative and successful engagement with public and patients submitted by NHS, Voluntary Sector and Social Care organisations. There will be two £5000 awards for each of the winners in the two categories – Commissioning and Provider

You will find further details of submission criteria, rules, guidelines and submission form on the NCI website at www.nhscentreforinvolvement.nhs.uk and clicking into the awards section.

Winners will be announced at the NCI Summer conference in central London on 2nd July this year.

The LINKs Annual Report has to be with the Secretary of State by the end of June and the newsletter offers guidance on how to do this and a template to follow.

Other news gives a link to all the LINk websites that the National Centre for Involvement (NCI) has tracked down so if you want to go comparison shopping and tell us how you think the Wandsworth site compares, look here and let us know.

There are a couple of interesting blogs and forum discussions. Tim Gilling from the Centre for Policy Studies says goodbye and gives his views after 14 months working with the NCI delivering advice and help to nearly 100 LINks. His advice to LINks is to get facing outwards as fast as possible and do not let organisational matters get in the way of getting involved with the community as early as possible. He draws attention to some uncertainty on the future of NCI involvement in the LINks work.

There is a discussion with 37 posts on the need for CRB checks for LINks Steering Group or in the Wandsworth context the Executive Committee – the majority view is that only those doing Entry and View visits need this clearance. To see what Wandsworth LINk has been doing in this area of future work, check out the paper C3 on the agenda for the last Executive meeting on 20th April.