Written evidence to be reported to the House

Part of Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:30 pm on 30 January 2007.

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Q89 Tom Levitt: Sally drew our attention to page 91 of the Library research paper when she quoted Melanie Johnson’s 2004 statement on protection from abolition. I want to quote page 97, which cites the Government response that “there are several fundamental differences between PPI forums and LINKs, for example LINKs will cover social care services as well as health, they will be established for a geographical area rather than a specific organization, and they will also decide locally how members will be appointed and how others will be able to contribute to their work priorities.”

Apart from the addition of social care services, bearing in mind that we have already moved to PCTs that are much more aligned with local authority boundaries and the fact that the link with the local authority will give democratic scrutiny through the conventional democratic channels, I cannot honestly see how any of the good things that you have talked about tonight that forums do cannot be done by LINKs and in spades, and how the forums cannot merge into LINKs in future. Why are LINKs a step backwards in your view?