Have you got views about health or social care services?
Local Involvement Networks (LINks) are a new way for people to get involved.
Leeds City Council is pleased to announce that the Shaw Trust has been appointed as the new Host organisation to set up a Local Involvement Network for Leeds. For further details see the press release 'Leeds people get more say in health and social care', available to view or download from this page.
The Shaw Trust will be working with the LINk Preparatory Group to get a wide range of people and organisations involved in the LINk. The Shaw Trust will be setting up a local office and advertising for staff during September.
For more information on the Shaw Trust see the Shaw Trust website.
Or contact the LINk at
Chantry House
Victoria Road
Leeds
LS5 3JB
Tel: 0113 388 5099
One of the resources for LINk Members will be the network Community Voices Online. A site for the Leeds LINk is in the process of development, where you will be able to get information about important health and social care issues, and register either as a participant or member of the LINk.
Membership of the LINk will be open both to organisations and to individual people and we will make sure the host knows about everyone who has been involved so far. We expect that members will be able to be involved in different ways.
Some members of the LINk will want to be involved in the work of planning and running and maintaining the LINk and ensuring that it is doing its job.
Some members will only want to get involved in work that is of particular interest to them although everyone will have the chance to be consulted about the development of the LINk, its work plan and ways of working.
It will be the job of the host organisation, working with the LINk, to make this happen.
What has changed?
In 2003 the health service established Patient Forums as an independent voice to help people to have a say about services in their area.
For social services, or social care, there have been different ways of getting involved in every area. In Leeds there are a lot of local groups which support the involvement of service users and carers, but they are not always well connected and do not cover everyone.
In 2006 the government consulted with people across the country to ask them what they wanted from health services. One of the most important things people said was that they wanted more say in how both health and social care services were planned and run.
In November 2007 the government passed a law (Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 sections 221-234) which closed the Patient Forums after 31st March 2008. The Act set up a new system for involvement called Local Involvement Networks or LINks.
The Leeds LINk will cover social care as well as health.
The LINk will be made up of many more people than the patient forums. It will be a network of user-led organisations and other voluntary, community and faith organisations as well as individuals and groups. Its aim will be to make it easier to represent the views of the many different people that make up the population and to ensure that they are listened to by both commissioners and providers of health and social care.
LINks have special legal powers to help them to improve services. They can:
- visit services to see what they do
- write reports and make recommendations
- ask for information which must be provided within a set time
- report findings to the Council's Scrutiny Board and get an answer
Each LINk needs an organisation to support or host it. The government has given local councils the job of finding an organisation to be the host for the LINk. The host organisation will set up and develop the LINk, and then continue with whatever practical support the LINk asks for. This will help the LINk to be an independent network which will choose its own ways of working under the new law and what it wants to say about health and social care.
So how has the Leeds LINk been set up?
1. Before the LINk was set up
First of all, Leeds City Council had to appoint the organisation which will host the LINk.
Last year the council and its partners asked a wide range of people:
- what we have got that works well now and how that will fit the LINk
- where there are gaps or problems and what the LINk could do to help
- what we will want the Leeds LINk to look like
- how we will want the Leeds LINk to work.
An all-day workshop on 4th December 2007 (see attached flyer, 'Shaping the LINk for Leeds') collected together a lot of different views which were put together in a report and we have also offered people other ways of contributing ideas.
Also in December 2007, we set up a reference group to be sure that people who currently represent patients, service users, the carers and the public could make their suggestions about what should happen.
2. Finding a host organisation
The council started its formal procurement process in November 2007 by advertising for expressions of interest to be host for the LINk. A good response was received and a short list drawn up.
Following agreement of a service specification and equality assessment, we invited shortlisted organisations to submit formal bids. From April to June we sought to clarify information from bidders.
This process took longer than expected but was finally completed, with the formal appointment of the new host organisation, towards the end of August 2008.
Transitional Arrangements
Patient and Public Involvement Forums ceased to exist at the end of March 2008. This was too short a time for nearly all local authorities to appoint a host organisation, so in the meantime the council has been required by law to establish a transitional arrangement to carry out local LINk functions until the host organisation is appointed.
The previous Reference Group of Patient, Service User and Carer representatives agreed to become a LINk Preparatory Group from the beginning of April.
Although this will not resemble the final LINk which will be much wider and made up in a different way, it will have an important influence on the LINk as well as representing the views of patients and users of care services until the LINk is established.
The group has been supported independently by Leeds Older People’s Forum. At the moment the group is made of former PPI Forum Members, users of social care services and representatives of the Leeds Health Forum
Questions people are asking us
What sort of organisation will the host be?
Organisations which applied to be the host have had to show that they know what will be needed to do a good job for the people of Leeds and that they have the capacity to perform the required functions effectively.
What about people who are currently involved in representing patients, service users, carers and the public?
To start with, the only change has been the end of Patient Forums on 31st March 2008. At the same time the NHS has begun to set up other types of consultative networks – which will be part of the LINk. The LINk is not meant to replace what works well at the moment, but over the time to come, it will probably suggest other changes.
Does this mean that the council will be running all the public involvement with health and social care?
No. Once the host organisation is set up, the only job for the council is to make sure that the host is doing what it is being paid to do. The new law sets out what the LINk should be doing but the LINk will be able to take all its own decisions including about what the host organisation needs to do so that patients, service users, carers and the public can make their voices heard effectively.
How do I find out more?
Lots of information about LINks in general is available from the NHS National Centre for Involvement website.
For queries about what is happening in Leeds, please contact Janet Somers, Business Change Manager, Leeds Social Services, via the link on this page.