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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I want to speak to these amendments to probe further a question which I remain unclear about, although I had hoped it to be clarified in the previous group of amendments. I was somewhat disappointed when the Minister gave us the impression that some of us, by probing these issues, might not be in favour of change. I think that change is often extremely positive but, to take change forward, we have to understand how we harness the energy of those involved in existing services and do not demoralise them. The management of change is around gathering people with you and taking you forward with their energy. If we are to take these changes forward, we have to conceptualise what this is about—and I am struggling to do that, particularly when I read in Clause 222 that the activities include, "““enabling people to monitor, and review, the commissioning and provision of local care services””." The commissioning of local care services is a highly complex process. What kind of organisation will we have? I continue to use that phrase, ““What kind of organisation?””, because I do not know the terminology with which to describe the matrix it appears that the LINks will be. I agree with these amendments—we have to have some sort of form and structure, some sort of membership and some sort of understanding of the host. I agree with my noble friend who asked who the hosts will be. I do not understand that and have very little idea of what their governance relationship is with the local authority or the primary healthcare trust—or, indeed, how those two relate to the LINks in terms of governance. I am sorry if this is losing some thread in our discussion and the nature of the documents that have been sent out. I have tried to follow it, but, as the noble Baroness will know, I spend a lot of my time in governance and trying to sort out some of the difficulties of change that the Government have created, which have not been too easy. I ask these probing questions simply because I am keen that we do not again create an animal that is unmanageable and something that we will have to unpick. This is a crucial change for the future.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

694 c602-3 

Session

2006-07

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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