PPlog

Continuing the exchange with Norfolk PCT is this mail received today: Dear Mr Cox, I have been passed a copy of the exchange of e-mails you’ve had with the communications team here at St Andrews. I hope the last e-mail from my colleague Caroline Howarth answered the specific concerns you raised, but I would be grateful if you will contact me and let me know if you feel there are any unanswered iissues. Martin Payne Complaints Manager 01603307372. My reply was: Hello Mr Payne. The original mail contained a formal compliant that the Norfolk PCT's Intermediate care plans are in breach of its Disability Equality Duty. However, the extent of the complaint is now expanding and, in the near future I will be writing to you with a detailed formal complaint in at least three parts. In the meantime please look again at my submission to the consultation. You can get it straight away at www.ppeyes.org.uk/NorPCTresp.html Heddwch Mike. Mike Llywelyn Cox micoxcox@btinternet.com http://www.ppeye...

In the House of Lords Debate this week on the Local Government and Public Involvement Bill, Baroness Howe of Idlicote said: I find it really rather upsetting that, even if the time has come to say goodbye finally to the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, nobody has thanked it for the work that it has done. THANK THEM? for this?

I sent this mail today to the Norfolk Forum Support Organisation: Hello Stephen. I’m writing about some disquiet I am feeling around the Norfolk PCT PPI Forum and I’m writing to you first in the hope of clearing it up quickly. This is however, copied to PPlog. Since May I’ve been absorbed by disability rights issues and getting ppeyes back on line. In the latter process which entailed reviewing everything previous, I was reminded of the issue around the original Waveney PPI Forum and my formal complaint to CPPIH about that which eventually went to the Parliamentary Ombudsman. The Ombusdsman eventually declined the complaint on the grounds it was a ‘personnel matter’ but before that they had begun investigations and CPPIH confessed their mistake. You May have had some knowledge of the issue. It is on ppeyes anyway. The complaint was that the chair of Waveney PPI was also a non-executive director of one of the trusts involved and should not have been appointed to the Forum in the first p...

Had this swift and courteous reply from Norfolk PCT today: Dear Mr Cox Thank you for your e-mail, which has been forwarded to me by Trish Turner. I will attempt to address your concerns in the order in which you originally laid them out. 1. Unfortunately due to the size of the printed consultation feedback document, we are unable to post a copy to you. However, a printed copy is available for anyone to view in each of the nine community hospitals involved in the original consultation process. You are very welcome to visit any of these hospitals to look through the document, though it must remain in situ to give other people the chance to view it. The statement on the PCT’s website is misleading and will be corrected. Thank you for highlighting the issue. 2. With regard to your response not being included in the files on the internet, it appears that you are correct and for this I must apologise. It was an oversight on our part and will be remedied as soon as po...

Still no named LINks person for Norfolk CC. Received this today: Norfolk is one of the Local Authorities I am chasing at the moment as we have still not received a named contact from them. I will forward it on as soon as I receive it. Kind regards Florella Baker Policy Officer/ BCLO Responsiveness and Accountability Branch Experience and Involvement Room 502A Skipton House 80 London Road London SE1 6LH Tel: 020 7972 5324 "Developing policies that promote a culture of responsiveness and partnership; involving people and communities to improve their experience of health and social care." Mike Cox rnet.com> cc: bcc: ...

The PCT consultations on its proposed intermediate care plans earlier this year have now reached fruition with the board meeting yesterday. Outlining the final plans following the huge deluge of objections from its rather laughable consultations (how much more would there have been if they had reached out into the Norfolk rural communities?) it seems they are doing very little to meet those objections. I have registered a formal complaint and would urge others to do the same: FORMAL COMPLAINT. 1. I have downloaded the `all letters received` file and I have looked in the organisations file. Nowhere can I see my response to the consultations. In continuing to ignore access to services for areas such as south east Norfolk and west Norfolk, and its failure to address mental health services in primary care, Norfolk PCT is in breach of its own Disability Equality Duty. I will also be making a formal complaint to the Disability Rights Commission. I'll keep you posted here.

Click on the title for the link to the Audit Commission Report on dementia. My own view is they have missed one of the central issues which is: It is probably more than a century since we ceased calling Epilepsy a mental illness and treated that condition correctly as a physical neurological disorder. Dementia is also, unarguably, a physical neurological disorder and, in a civilised society, should be treated as such. This one simple change would mean the condition getting full and proper attention in the mainstream NHS and not have to lie partially neglected in the much neglected Cinderella sidestream which is mental health services.

A Norfolk June. I've just added a new section to ppeyes which deals with what it says: items to do with Norfolk and sometimes Suffolk. The first item is about the Norfolk PCT's proposals for future healthcare - in my opinion, creating many inequalities. My response to their proposals is there too. Timing is good as there is a special board meeting on 24th July to make decisions following the consultations. How much notice do you reckon they'll take? I'd be happy to add other people's contributions to this but bear in mind I moderate your comments.

I get news from my home town of Llandudno through a suscription to the local weekly paper. Of late, and for some months, there has been an issue around the possible closure of most of the facilities at Llandudno General Hospital. Deeply involved in these issues has been the Welsh version of PPI. Click on the title of this piece to have an interesting look.

After nine years of strife and Government obduracy, the new Act has today received Royal Assent. You can find a history of the Act's progress at http://www.ppeyes.org.uk/mentalhealth.html But don't throw your pikestaffs and pitchforks into the river yet. The next stage is probably the most important one. It has been a strong argument from all those opposing the Bill (and that is a huge majority of service users, clinicians and mental health professionals in the UK) that all the detail which will go into the Code of Practice should have been on the face of the Bill and therefore enforceable in a court of law. This hasn't happened though and the seperate Code of Practice is still to come. The Government have promised a lengthy consultation period starting in the Autumn. Please be sure to participate. We need legislation which focusses on a statutory provision of care and treatment to meet the real needs of service users - not an instrument of social control. Not straying too ...

Done! the url is www.ppeyes.org.uk

Just an update. Got the host sorted and it's just a question of waiting for the domain name transfer.

I sent this mail to a discussion forum recently. The topic was concerns about the effects of increasing privatisation in healthcare: I've been doing some union representation recently (they called me out of retirement because of an increase in referrals from the private/independent sector). The first two cases involved people with disabilities which were being ignored by their employers. To make this brief, the problem is that not being `public bodies` these organisations do not have to have a disability equality scheme and, in most cases (the Law Lords ruled last week that it is arguable that where there are `public functions` they do) they don't have to consider the Human Rights Act. Additionally these organisations are burgeoning with managerialism and, for instance, are using heavy handed and intimidating disciplinary proceedings to deal with anyone stepping off the corporate path. The part answer of course is to keep a closer eye on the `standard level agreements` and the ...

So, enthusiastically waving goodbye to Rosie Winterton who, shall we say, tenaciously charmed the Health Committee when they questioned her about the shortcomings of PPI in 2005 and, shall we say, determinedly championed the originally awful travesty of healthcare, the Mental Health Bill in Parliament (see below), we see that two of her important strands of responsibility: mental health and Patient and Public Involvement in Health have been divided between two different Ministers. When I came across the name Ann Keen, it sounded small tinkles in the recesses of that amorphous mess given the label: my brain. Is this the budding politician I met at the first meetings to set up the embryo whistleblowing organisation, Freedom to Care, at Hammersmith hospital in the early 1990s? This extract from her website biography says it may well be: Ann’s nursing background and experience of working at West Middlesex Hospital for many years as a Tutor Nurse and locally as a District Nurse have provide...

Just a confirmation of the search for a website host and my website ppeyes will be back on line. The functions are the same - as an independent monitor of how patient and public involvement in health is working with the addition of looking at how LINks will be set up (if they indeed are set up at all). This blog will be used for comments on current activities and developments closely allied to the website. As soon as the site is up and running I'll provide a link. Activities have extended further since ppeyes was taken off line (because it was criticising a government department - more later) in September 2005. I'm now active in service user campaigning and, being a disabled National Health Service User myself, in disability rights.