Mandy Wearne, Chair of the NCI board set the tone with an excellent keynote speech summarizing some of the key issues facing Links and the NHS. By placing an emphasis on outcomes she reminded us all that the NHS had no pre-eminent right to be around forever. It's future is in our hands - and a failure to involve people in the commissioning, ongoing service quality and the service gaps that necessarily arise in any system will only serve to diminish the role of the NHS.

In this respect Mandy Wearne offered some really practical advice on influencing NHS managers and clinicians as to the value of involvement - good practice shows that quality services drive up volumes and generates more funding for successful services. There is clearly a virtuous circle of reduced waste through learning and best practice, which helps the Finance Managers balance budgets, and through patient retention which again keeps funding levels up. Mandy drew parallels here with commercial business - and reminded us that any NHS service may lose up to 50% of its patients over a 5 year period - severely eroding the budget balance. Patient choice will necessarily impact poorer services more greatly and therefore areas where patient involvement is weaker this will have compound effect. The weaker the involvement the stronger the downward spiral in overall service quality.

In this respect local and national voluntary organisations have a pivotal role to play in that they can independently advise patients regarding the relative quality of services locally and regionally and affect demand for these services by using word of mouth anedoctal reports and formal reviews to cocontent

The central message was that the NHS move prove worthy of patient trust, show that it has a caring capacity and show commitment in real terms. Patient involvement has a central part to play in this respect.

http://www.nhscentreforinvolvement.nhs.uk/index.cfm?Content=223