In Mental Health Birmingham UK The LONE LINKSTER Rides Out

UserWatch thanks the UK wide contacts who got the information about the costs of the new public scrutiny orgs : LINks (Local Involvement Networks) which are being put into place after April 1st 2008 to replace Patient & Public Involvement Forums that become defunct after March 31st 2008 . Kakatoo (UserWatch Roving Toonist) swears the LONE LINKSTER has been seen riding the horse "Impossible Levitation"...We think that's a sideswipe at LINKO who is probably out there searching for a Man Called HOST ....Yes the poor outsider who becomes an organising guardian of the LINks tribe but gets hoisted by the pectorals to see the Sun spirit or something.....Until then its case of HIYOOOO NOTHINGNESS.......Especially in Birmingham UK . We do know that the LINK's roll out is being handled very badly (some insider estimations are real public scrutiny may be difficult until Sept 2008) probably in order to allow the NHS chaos to pull its pants up before the usual Brown skid marks are seen

WRITTEN Answer 22.2.08

Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury, Conservative) | Hansard source :

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the budget was for (a) community health councils, (b) each community health council, (c) patient involvement forums and (d) each patient involvement forum in the last full financial year of their operation; and what the budget is for (i) local involvement networks and (ii) each local involvement network in the first full financial year of their operation.

Ann Keen (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Health Services), Department of Health)
| Hansard source :

Community Health Councils (CHCs), Patient and Public Involvement Forums (PPIFs) and local involvement networks (LINks) - all support a stronger voice for patients and the public. However, they all have different functions, geographical coverage and support infrastructure. Furthermore, LINks differ from CHCs and Forums because they cover social care as well as health services. Funds allocated to support CHCs, forums and LINks were distributed through three very different mechanisms—via Department of Health Regional Offices and health authorities for CHCs, via the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (CPPIH) and Forums Support Organisations (FSOs) to Forums and through local authorities (LAs) and hosts for LINks.

In the case of CHCs and PPIFs, it is not possible to provide exact figures for each CHC and PPIF. However, we can provide an indication of average allocation based on total funding divided by the number of CHCs and PPIFs. We can identify the allocation made available to each LINk, as the funding route is direct from the department to each individual LA.

£/number Total funding for CHCs in the last full year of operation (2002-03) = 23 million

Number of CHCs = 184
Average allocation per CMC = 125,000

Total funding for PPIFs in the last full year of operation (2007-08) = 28 million
Number of PPIFs = 398 Average allocation per PPIF = 70,300

Total funding for LINks in their first full year of operation (2008-09)
28 million
Number of LINks
150

Actual amount allocated to each LA per LINk for 2008-09
See following table :

2008-09 LA's & £ costs as proportion of /million

Hartlepool 0.099
Herefordshire 0.11
Isle of Wight Council 0.115
Isles of Scilly 0.061
Kingston upon Hull 0.173
Leicester 0.186
Luton 0.131
Medway 0.136
Middlesbrough 0.122
Milton Keynes 0.129
North East Lincolnshire 0.120
North Lincolnshire 0.114
North Somerset 0.121
Nottingham 0.184
Peterborough 0.122
Plymouth 0.151
Poole 0.103
Portsmouth 0.125
Reading 0.104
Redcar and Cleveland 0.116
Rutland 0.069
Slough 0.104
South Gloucestershire 0.124
Southampton 0.141
Southend-on-Sea 0.123
Stockton-on-Tees 0.126
Stoke-on-Trent 0.163
Swindon 0.112
Telford and The Wrekin 0.119
Wiltshire 0.181
Worcestershire 0.222
Bedfordshire 0.171
Buckinghamshire 0.182
Cambridgeshire 0.219
Cheshire 0.257
Barking and Dagenham 0.147
Barnet 0.182
Bexley 0.131
Brent 0.185
Bromley 0.151
Croydon 0.188
Ealing 0.183
Enfield 0.179
Haringey 0.172
Harrow 0.138
Havering 0.133
Hillingdon 0.147
Hounslow 0.142
Kingston upon Thames 0.102
Merton 0.123
Newham 0.214
Redbridge 0.156
Richmond upon Thames 0.107
Sutton 0.118
Waltham Forest 0.164
Camden 0.176
Greenwich 0.188
Hackney 0.207
Thurrock 0.111
Torbay 0.119
Warrington 0.117
West Berkshire 0.095
Windsor and Maidenhead 0.093
Wokingham 0.087
Bath and York 0.108
North East Somerset 0.109
Blackburn with Darwen 0.123
Blackpool 0.126
Bournemouth 0.119
Bracknell Forest 0.086
Brighton and Hove 0.148
Bristol 0.210
Darlington 0.096
Derby 0.150
East Riding of Yorkshire 0.158
Halton 0.111
Cornwall 0.252
Cumbria 0.232
Derbyshire 0.314
Devon 0.298
Dorset 0.183
Durham 0.256
East Sussex 0.236
Essex 0.480
Gloucestershire 0.231
Hampshire 0.378
Hertfordshire 0.361
Kent 0.492
Lancashire 0.454
Leicestershire 0.219
Lincolnshire 0.285
Norfolk 0.342
North Yorkshire 0.222
Northamptonshire 0.253
Northumberland 0.165
Nottinghamshire 0.304
Oxfordshire 0.222
Shropshire 0.150
Somerset 0.226
Staffordshire 0.301
Suffolk 0.280
Surrey 0.333
Warwickshire 0.212
West Sussex 0.281
Hammersmith/Fulham 0.143
Islington 0.170
Kensington and Chelsea 0.140
Lambeth 0.207
Lewisham 0.197
Southwark 0.211
Tower Hamlets 0.208
Wandsworth 0.169
Westminster 0.174
City of London 0.063
Barnsley 0.152
Bolton 0.166
Bradford 0.259
Bury 0.122
Calderdale 0.130
Coventry 0.178
Doncaster 0.172
Dudley 0.173
Gateshead 0.140
Kirklees 0.202
Knowsley 0.140
North Tyneside 0.134
Oldham 0.151
Rochdale 0.147
Rotherham 0.160
Salford 0.159
Sandwell 0.202
Sefton 0.172
Solihull 0.119
South Tyneside 0.127
St Helens 0.132
Stockport 0.149
Sunderland 0.176
Tameside 0.146
Trafford 0.130
Wakefield 0.182
Walsall 0.170
Wigan 0.175
Wirral 0.200
Wolverhampton 0.169
Birmingham 0.558
Leeds 0.308
Liverpool 0.291
Manchester 0.288
Newcastle upon Tyne 0.171
Sheffield 0.263

Note:

The remaining £l million, after LA allocations are made, will be used to support national LINks activity.