MANY will remember how sad we were to see the abolition of Community Health Councils (CHCs) some years ago and then the abolition also of their successors the Patient and Public Involvement Forums just as ours in particular was becoming effective.

Now we have Local Involvement Networks (LINks) set up by the Government with insufficient resources to support them in their expanded role having responsibility for client input and links with Social Services as well as health commissioning and providing bodies. An enormous task!

I was delighted to meet the chairperson of the Worcestershire LINk, Ann Montague-Smith, recently and I was impressed with the plans and progress so far.

With the limited resources available they are doing just what a LINk ought to do – linking existing or re-formed patient and public bodies together through the LINk committee.

These include the Acute Trust patients’ forum, the Primary Care Trust (PCT) patients’ panel, the Mental Health Trust patients’ panel and the Ambulance Trust patients’ group.

Thus all the main health groups are linked and I hope individual GP practice patient participation groups will know how to be represented on the PCT patients’ panel.

The LINk committee are forging links with Social Services but this is more difficult as no precedent exists for this. I hope that the Director of Public Health, who is now a joint appointment with the county council and the PCT will be a help as patient or client involvement is crucial here as well.

Thus my pessimism that the loss of patient forums was going to see the end of effective public involvement is unfounded thanks to the hard work of people who have been members of CHCs and forums and new recruits who all knew it was up to them to make the new system work.

Issues they are addressing now include the necessity for Foundation Trust board meetings to be held in public and the adequacy of the out-of-hours primary care arrangements across the county.

If anyone wishes to be involved in this valuable voluntary work the contact details are: Worcestershire LINk, The Old Library Centre, 65 Ombersley Street East, Droitwich Spa, WR9 8QS; Tel: 01905 779073; e-mail: worcestershire link@shaw-trust.org.uk Despite the weather many turned out for the Bewdley Carnival and the Bewdley Mayor’s Sunday Service at St Anne’s. It was a tribute to the organisers that so much went on despite the abysmal weather for the carnival.

At Westminster it was the second reading of the Health Bill on Monday. Despite the importance of this Bill relating to, the NHS Constitution, Quality Accounts, Innovation, aspects of the work of pharmacies and control of the sale of tobacco products, between 6-7pm, the time of the Labour Party meeting to discuss the future of the Prime Minister, there was only one Labour back bencher in the chamber!

My contact details: 137 Franche Road, Kidderminster DY11 5AP. Tel: 01562 753333.