Pendle MP, Gordon Prentice, is meeting representatives from the Lancashire LINk organisation this Friday, the 29th May. Lancashire LINk replaced the Patient & Public Involvement (PPI) Forums which the government wound up in March 2008.

Mr Prentice said “Since spring last year, there has effectively been no official patient or public representation on any NHS body locally. I have asked questions about this  in the House of Commons to raise my concerns that the patient’s voice is being silenced via the back door. We knew well in advance that the PPI Forums were being wound up and yet here we are 15 months later still going through endless consultations to determine the best way to represent the patient and the public interests. Whose NHS is it anyway?”

“I am meeting officials from the local representative body and Lancashire County Council, which is responsible for ensuring that patient interests are taken seriously across the county. I want to find out what progress is being made setting up the LINk network and why the whole process is taking so long.”

“We are currently half way through the Meeting Patient Needs re-organisation of our local hospital services and there is a lot of bad feeling out there that the changes are not to improve services to the patients but to cut costs. In my view, it is essential that  we have active public involvement in our health services during this time of major upheaval.”

Note for Editors:
On Friday 29th May, Mr Prentice will be meeting:
Pauline Blackie, Lancashire LINk Manager
Prof. Peter McEwan (Lancashire LINk Chair),
David Rowbotham (Lancashire LINk Vice-chair and Chair of Lancashire LINk's East Lancashire Locality Group)
Peter Shorrock, Lancashire County Council LINk co-ordinator.