COLUMNIST

RHUN AP IORWERTH

WELSH Government is currently consulting on the future of governance in the Welsh NHS. Or is it?

One of the matters under consideration in the “Services Fit for the Future” White Paper published in August is the possible scrapping of Community Health Councils.

These are the bodies which represent the voice of the patient in matters relating to the NHS.

On its website the CHCs say “The proposals would see the end of long standing arrangements set up to place power in the hands of local people to monitor how their NHS services are working.”

Mutale Merrill, chairman of the Board of Community Health Councils in Wales, says “The proposed new body would not have the right to visit NHS services to hear from patients first-hand about their experiences and to represent their views directly to health bodies.”

She calls on people to look at the proposals and have their say.

The consultation is due to end later this month. Consultations held over the summer months are not perhaps the best timed to attract the maximum input.

In stepped an organisation called The Consultation Institute, concerned about a lack of face-to-face public consultation about the plans.

They put on a roundtable event, and say they invited Welsh Government along but were told them it would be inappropriate for them to be present as it would compromise the integrity of the consultation.

This, says the Institute, is something they’ve never encountered before.

Last week, a quick appeal was made on a personal Facebook account by an individual who had been charged with “running a number of focus groups” to discuss the matter, admitting it was a “tight turnaround”.

It certainly is – the consultation period is nearly over!

Someone suggests the CHCs could be invited, but a reply states that as the White Paper proposes their abolition, they may not be too keen to take part.

Read into this what you wish, but to me, the promotion of the patient voice in how the NHS is run is too important to be brushed over.

It’s fair to say there are deep concerns among CHCs staff and volunteers about what could be lost.

I should say that I’m not arguing for the preservation of CHCs, per se, but rather the preservation and the strengthening of their functions to stand up for the patient.

What is being proposed in Wales is seen by many in Welsh CHCs as being very similar to plans that have already been introduced in Scotland. The new Scottish Body was recently likened to a “toothless hamster.”

Welsh patients deserve better, so I urge Welsh Government to consult properly, and to think very carefully before throwing the baby out with whatever bath water they’ve deemed to be surplus to requirements.