TODAY (December 1) the curtain finally comes down on community health councils. I would like to thank Nick Westbrook and his team at the Bath and District CHC for all their hard work and say how very much they will be missed.
Community health councils have played an important role in standing up for patients over many years. I suspect that in being so successful they have sown the seeds of their own destruction at the hands of ministers that do not always respond positively to criticism.
Instead of CHCs we will have a bewildering array of alternative watchdog, liaison and advocacy services. I have questioned in committee their structural ability to provide decision makers with anything like the informed local angle on health care that we have grown accustomed to from CHCs. That said, I wish them all the very best.
A MURRISON MP
House of Commons
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