Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I apologise if I contributed to the confusion, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Part 13 fits with the overarching themes of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, in ensuring greater opportunities for local people to influence and shape services in their areas, and to hold local authorities and service providers more accountable to them. The inclusion of the provisions tells a coherent story of the Government’s efforts to promote public engagement. Part 13 has three components: first, the establishment of LINKs; secondly, the abolition of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health and patients forums; and thirdly, the clarification and strengthening of requirements to consult patients and the public. LINKs will enable far more people to be genuinely involved than is currently the case, ensuring that local communities have a stronger voice in the commissioning and provision of health and social care, and enabling them to influence key decisions about the services that they both use and pay for. LINKs take an important step beyond the existing powers of patients forums by enabling local people to have a greater say in social care as well as health services. They will build on the good work of the forums, making possible genuine involvement in a much wider range of ways than is currently available. They will ensure that local communities have a stronger voice in the process of commissioning health and social care and becoming involved in decisions about their local health and social care services. Local authorities will have a duty to make contractual arrangements for the involvement of people in the commissioning, provision and scrutiny of health services and social care. That will allow the funding stream to go straight to the local level, ensuring that as much money as possible is available to fund front-line activity. The abolition of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health is one element of the overall drive to reduce the arm’s length body sector, releasing centralised funding to the local level.