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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, I apologise that I have arrived rather late. I had to be at a rather important meeting in relation to the regulator and was therefore unable to be here. The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, and I strongly support LINks’ activities in social care and all other healthcare that is not already dealt with by an existing organisation—for example, a foundation trust—where there is a board of governors with, in my own experience, a strong commitment to the communication role between the foundation trust and the public, the users, carers and others. A good proportion of members of the board of governors are users and carers. They are not, as mentioned by the noble Earl, a self-selected group; they are elected by some 10,000 members of the public, many of whom, again, are users or carers. They are representative and have a tremendous commitment to raising the quality of services for, as they see it, themselves—us, the users, the carers and the public. We have to be careful not to assume that somehow these are professional representatives; that is not how they see themselves at all. In proposing the amendments I was trying to achieve the best possible information, visits to wards by members of boards of governors and commitment to the interests of users, carers and the public while ensuring those functions were not performed twice over. It is for the Minister to decide whether she needs to go back and change the regulations and so on regarding boards of governors, or to make some amendment to the way in which the LINks would function. Otherwise, I fear that these two bodies with considerable public membership will duplicate each other’s effort in some areas, causing some confusion and, particularly, taking resources away from the front-line delivery of services, which we all want to achieve to the maximum degree. While I have a high regard for the speakers on the other side of the House and have much enjoyed working with them in the short time I have been here, I hope they will understand the motivation behind the amendments, which is to achieve the best possible outcome for patients, carers and the public—but not twice over.