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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

The Minister made a valiant attempt to tell us that all will be well. She told us how all the local authorities were finding hosts and how CSCI and everybody else was involved, but what she did not say, which seems key, is that the patient forums, which are the early adopters and are trying to move towards becoming LINks, are asking why the pace is so rapid. There seems to be a great impetus within the Department of Health to have the mergers and the changes in the various regulatory and arm’s-length bodies in place by March 2008. However, those early adopter patient forums are saying, in terms, ““This is too fast. We can’t do it at that pace””. It is fine for the local authorities to be active—it is absolutely great if they are trying to find hosts—but if the early adopters are saying that it is too fast and if the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Peterborough is saying, ““Come on, guys, let’s go for evolution, not revolution””, do we not have to listen a little harder?