A committee of MPs has called for community health councils to be given a seven month reprieve because of the confusion surrounding the new system of involving patients in the NHS.
A report by the Commons health select committee called for the community health councils' period of operation to be extended from December 2003 until July 2004 after it cast doubt on how many of the new patient involvement bodies were in place.
MPs said that none of the new bodies had the “overview, independence or direct means for patients to input into local services... And they cannot, in our view, be described as an adequate replacement for CHCs [community health councils], even as an interim measure.”
In May the committee questioned the assertion by the then health minister David Lammy that 96% of NHS trusts had established Patient Advocacy and Liaison Services (PALS), bodies which will provide “on the spot” help and advice. He said in a parliamentary answer last October that this information was not collected centrally.
The report stated: “We find it astonishing that the minister was unable to provide information on the extent to which government policy was being implemented.”
The committee was critical of Mr Lammy, now a minister at the new Department for Constitutional Affairs, but it acknowledged that he took the brief only in May 2002.
MPs said: “We are dismayed that at our evidence session Mr Lammy apparently failed to grasp the subtle but extremely important distinctions between the organisations which his government is currently setting up.”
MPs were also exasperated that in the three years since the announcement of the new arrangements in the NHS Plan in July 2000 four ministers have been in charge of this “important area.”
The committee also criticised the introduction of the Patient and Public Involvement Forums, which will monitor Patient Advocacy and Liaison Services and the Independent Complaints and Advocacy Services. MPs cast doubt on Mr Lammy's assurances that all forums would be in place by December.
MPs warned that because the appointment process to the forums had been delegated to local voluntary organisations, single issue groups would dominate and only a small group of users would have an input.
David Hinchliffe, chairman of the select committee, added that the committee wanted to put on record its “amazement” that the government's plans for overhauling patients' involvement via foundation hospitals had not come to light sooner.
He said: “We are left with the impression that some policy within the Department of Health is formulated in total isolation from other policy, leading to the ridiculous situation whereby the NHS and its patients are now faced with the introduction of two parallel but entirely different systems of patient and public involvement within the NHS within one year.”
Patient and Public Involvement in the NHS can be accessed at www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/health_committee