Archived decisions

Contact: Paddy Hillary, ext no 7391, email: [email protected]

1. Summary

1.1 The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act places a duty on local authorities with social care responsibilities to procure a host organisation in order to establish a Local Involvement Network (LINk) for their area to replace current NHS specific arrangements for engagement and participation. This report outlines the issues arising, the actions being taken locally to implement this proposal and the need for an authority to spend in relation to the procurement process.

1.2 This supports the Corporate Strategy through promoting public engagement in the delivery of health and social care services and therefore contributing to the priorities for Safer and More Secure and Maximising Wellbeing.

2. Government proposals

2.1 The Local Government & Public Involvement in Health Act gained Royal assent last week. One of the requirements included is the requirement for local authorities, with responsibility for social care, to establish a LINk for the area in the place of the current Patient and Public Involvement Forums (PPIFs). Each LINk will be made up of volunteer "members", ie a person or group that makes a commitment to take part in LINks' activities on a regular basis and volunteer "participants", ie a person, group or organisation that wants to influence the work of LINks , even though they may not participate on a regular basis. The roles of LINks apply to both health and social care services. They will differ from Patient Forums in that they will be attached to an area, rather than to an individual NHS institution.

2.2 The role of the LINk is intended to be:

· promoting and supporting the involvement of people in the commissioning, provision and scrutiny of local health and social care services

· obtaining the views of people about their need for, and experiences of, local health and social care services

· enabling people to monitor and review the commissioning and provision of care services

· raising the concerns of local people with those responsible for commissioning, providing, managing and scrutinising services.

2.3 The Dept of Health is currently consulting on the regulations for this process including additional duties for the local authority and other service providers in relation to the LINk. These are as follows:

· To respond to requests for information - probably in line with current FOI regulations

· To respond to reports and recommendations made by the LINk

· To allow entry by authorised representatives of the LINk to premises

· To allow referral by the LINk to Overview and Scrutiny

2.4 The timescales originally proposed were that the LINk should be established by April 2008 but, inevitably, the timetable has slipped and the consultation on the regulations does not finish until December 07 with the final regulations only likely to be published in Jan/Feb 08. A late amendment to the Bill is expected to recognise this and allow the deadline to slip by up to 6 months.

2.5 Funding is to be provided for the establishment of LINks through the new area grant and we are awaiting confirmation from Dept of Health of the amount to be allocated to Hampshire under the specified formula (a baseline amount plus a targeted amount based on relative size, population and other factors such as deprivation). The County Council has already received £10,000 to assist with procurement.

3. Actions so far locally

3.1 A workshop was held early in October to bring together interested parties including the PCT, several NHS trusts, Adult Services, voluntary organisations and current PPIF chairs.

3.2 A proposal was put forward as a model for ensuring that this initiative adds value to current engagement and participation activities rather than confuse and duplicate. This model is attached as Appendix 1. The workshop appointed a working group to develop these proposals further to inform the specification for procurement purposes and for making best use of the LINk. This group is scheduled to meet in November.

3.3 Initial discussions have been held with our own procurement experts and the legal team to understand the process and timescales. Further work needs to be done to understand the procurement requirements which may involve the need to advise on TUPE.

3.3 Initial discussions have also been held with Southampton City Council to start to understand where joint commissioning and collaboration might help with the process both in terms of efficiency and clarity for residents.

4. Issues

4.1 There is a lack of clarity from government around these proposals and the extent to which they should fit with existing or developing engagement and empowerment activities. The concern is that the interested groups and general public will not understand the specific nature of the LINk, as opposed to other mechanisms for either complaining about or participating in the delivery and development of services. In particular, within the Bill, there is another proposal for the creation of the `community call for action' process, and alongside other activities which are managed by the County Council and NHS trusts, the proliferation of these processes could cause even more confusion. Added to this is the fact that there could be 3 LINks in Hampshire, emphasising the need to work closely with Southampton and Portsmouth.

4.2 There are a number of issues associated with procuring the host organisation including the need to avoid a conflict of interest for voluntary organisations who may choose to tender, the uncertainty of the ongoing funding and the issues of accountability and reporting. In any case there will be an additional administrative and management burden on the County Council in relation to both starting and maintaining the process.

4.3 The full procurement process is likely to take up to 6 months and a report will be taken to the Leader for an authority to spend to start the process. In the absence of confirmation of the amount of the grant from government we will need to begin with consultation with local bodies to gain an understanding of the potential market and to help devise a specification for the tendering process. There are currently no resources in the Policy Unit to undertake this process, however, with the grant from the government (£10k) it may be possible to buy in time from a consultant to project manage the procurement phase with some support from PBRS and possibly the Treasurer's consultancy team.

4.4 On the positive side, this does provide an opportunity to channel a lot of the market and opinion research currently carried out by both the County Council and the NHS. There is scope for the role of the LINks to contribute to the way in which local public sector agencies, such as CC and NHS, involve and engage with people and communities. This goes beyond the traditional understanding of engagement via consultation (which tends to focus on a specific topic and be a 'one-off' exercise) towards a more consistent and on-going involvement of citizens and service users in the planning and delivery of services. If directed in this way the LINks could not only compliment existing networks and agencies working across communities, but also provide a focal point for securing feedback to inform commissioning and performance assessment. The PCT has already indicated its willingness to work with the CC, and commit resources, to take this forward. Senior management and member support would be essential if this approach was to be explored further.

Recommendations

1 That approval be given for the use of the government £10,000 grant to help with the management of the procurement process for the host for the Local Involvement Network,

2 That approval be given to spend the main government funding (amount to be confirmed) for Local Involvement Network through the County Council's procurement process.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB: the list excludes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

None