Written evidence to be reported to the House
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
2:16 pm
Rosie Winterton: I have written personally to all forum members twice to say that we value their work and hope that they will become involved in the new LINKs. I was trying to send the message that we see the measures as adding to the existing powers of patient forums.
An example is a LINK that wants to look at what happens to people who have had a stroke. Somebody who has had a stroke will probably enter through accident and emergency. They might go into a specialised stroke unit, then into a rehabilitation unit and then back into the community. Again, they will need the services of social care. As services increasingly come out of the hospital setting into the community, we want a LINK to have the ability to scrutinise all those services and not be confined, as many are at the moment, to making reports about their own institutions and not necessarily about what happens to the patient. We do not say that they will not be able to look at particular institutions, as I have said, but we want to widen their remit to give them more power to find out what exactly happens to patients and what patients’ experiences are in accessing health and social care.