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Sharon Grant and other signatories (Letters, October 15) criticise plans to strengthen the voice of patients. They imply that the legislation to replace patients' forums with local involvement networks (LINks), currently going through parliament, will weaken local accountability. It will achieve the opposite. The government wants everyone to be able to have their say about local health and social care services and have the ability to influence how they are run. A patients' forum can scrutinise NHS services, but not social-care services run by local councils. Forums could be more representative - they only have a few thousand members across England, when the NHS has tens of millions of patients.
Links will build on the good work of the forums and will have similar powers to hold local services to account. However, they will be larger and will aim to represent everyone in the community. Importantly, LINks will cover all publicly funded care services in an area - no matter who provides them - and should provide a one-stop shop for care professionals to talk to the community and vice versa. We are consulting on the regulations that will decide how the legislation will work in practice (www.dh.gov.uk/consultations).Ann Keen MPParliamentary undersecretary for health
Patient forums have repeatedly shown themselves to be ineffectual in representing the victims of medical negligence and misdiagnosis by NHS service providers ever since these so-called "independent" judicators replaced community health councils a decade ago. They have merely provided a convenient smokescreen to truth, while paying lip service to vague notions of public participation and consultation. At least the new reforms will help force the real problems out of their dark corners and encourage many more patients to seek direct individual redress through the courts, or by seeking advice from their local MP or the government's own Health Commission inquiry process.Karen Jemmett
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