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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I thank the Minister for her intervention, but the problem is that that approach was adopted when CHCs were scrapped and very little expertise transferred over to patients forums. I would remind the Minister that qualifications for individual membership of LINKs are not set out in the Bill, but left to the discretion of the host organisation. That will make it difficult for the Government to claim that LINKs will build on the reforms and the work of the forums. If the qualifications are not set out in the Bill, members of the patients forums will not know where they stand. Qualifications for membership are not the only details missing from the Bill. In fact, the Bill is extremely vague on a number of points. Local involvement networks will not be created as statutory bodies, with statutory powers. It is merely a name given to certain nondescript arrangements, set up by a nondescript host organisation to carry out activities that will be entirely subject to change at the Secretary of State’s whim.