Gerry Who Says Don't Vote For Me Wins A Seat !

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Well its been done ! A man who is a clearly a principled critic of the Birmingham Local Involvement Network (LINK) a health monitoring body and who said " Do not vote for me " has been elected into one of the 7 Core Group seats . (SEE SOURCE )

UserWatch has been contacted by several members of parts of the the astonished Birmingham Public who mostly were laughing about this ... One of them said :

"This strange LINK body which seems to be half filled with genuine health monitors and half filled with some ego chameleons has yet put on another mysterious display which bedazzles - but this man Gerry made sense in being really critical of how money has been wasted and some of us hope he creates a serious check on stopping the empty ego-antics of some posers and helps to aid more real health monitoring in Birmingham "

From papers we had sent to us Gerry's election address to those who appeared eligible to vote, strangely not everyone in Birmingham , stated :

"£82,249 wasted on research ? £52 ,000 on radio adverts ? Why ?

LINK members should question accountability and responsibility for our money , stop expenditure on expensive lunches , laptops and employing personal assistants for any Core Group member . Who controls the LINK , where is the accountability , investigations into LINK workings not published , good staff gone , a bitter tasted left ? Do not vote for me ."


Go go go Gerrrrryyyy ......

It seems from the information reaching us through PCT and other gossip networks that the Bham LINK is conflicted with those who really seem not to know what they are doing and with those that do .

What we are hearing is an effort is being made for reform and we are asking for further information on this from anyone who can send it to us . We are also picking up that "elections" wasted money and efforts when it would have been better to appoint people and train them up and test their capacity for real monitoring through making reports challenging the health and social care systems to account . Wasn't that was LINK was for?

One the best health reporters in Bham named Alison Dayani needs to get into these strange-world "don't vote for me" stories . Where oh where is Alison ? BIRMINGHAM NEEDS HER !

Please report on Birmingham Health Wonderland stories . Alison in Wonderland follow that LINK white rabbit now ..

UW

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Red And Blue Bollox Mental Health Delusions And China Does Not Exist

Oh go on, and Click on the letter - make it bigger

Injure your sensibilities and scream ... After Labour selling everyone out and making them middle class bureaucrats or uni uni uni headucated dreamlings or just imprisoned or inside charity systems of half life and death shelfware and welfare beings we all now join in missing the point of actually needing a realistic modernised respected"working class" that produces for the country on an export led basis .. Where the feck else can money come from .. Cranky banking ?

China does not exist either it fell into fantasy ocean where the rising island of BIIIIG Western Competition suddenly burps into titchronic existence .. God what total bollox ..

And instead of a proper analysis which shows up the stupid selfish class structure dreams in the UK we get : "Whack the unemployed" ....Whack the mentally ill into quick fitness for work by IAPT "Improvement in Access to Therapies" and whack whack whack .

Its sounds like a new fecking species of Tory Sadistic Duck ..

We are off to relieve ourselves - all this is making us want to whack off .. But there again we are UserWhack .. If you cannot beat them - whack off with them ..

UW

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Birmingham LINK - Free and Flawed Elections ?

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Rumours in the UserWatching and LINK-Watching community are circulating that the Birmingham Local Involvement Network is having free and flawed elections .

Free apparently for those who know how to enter them and flawed because if people in Birmingham do not realise how they can vote then they do not get a vote . A few sources contacting UserWatch now claim that only people on a mysterious database behind the scenes can vote ? HUH ?

We asked in pure-street : "WACHA-MEAN ?"

"Ah well (they said) , if you iz on the database of the LINK Host (people that do admin for the LINK) then you getz a vote ..."

So it appears that you people of Birmingham in the main are not on a database and that means you cannot get a vote on who is allegedly wasting money on your behalf .

So how useful are these election processes at the Local Involvement Network of the Birmingham Health Monitoring LINK ? Well it appears they are not useful at all because their reach is critically unsound (hardly any electorate voting ) and it diverts resources from the core duties of Monitoring Health and Social Care on behalf of the Birmingham public .

Who cares ? Does the Health Overview Scrutiny Committee in Birmingham care about processes (elections) that each time waste £3000 pounds to be "checked".

Does Deidre Alden the Chair of that committee care about this ? We guess she does and we hear maybe she is waiting for the moment to administer political chloroform on the worst parts of the LINK's practices.

Lay monitoring has its place on vulnerable groups but fanciful distractions like "elections" are a waste as opposed to training lay people to monitor properly with some of that wasted election money .

UW

At the Going Down Of the LINK In Brum ?

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Its always good to see questions being asked and it appears more are being asked about the Birmingham LINK (Local Involvment Network of Health Monitors) . One candidate in the new "Core Group" elections to be held in February it appears (?) is using the election address statement to put some pretty searching questions - see from documents we have had passed to us :

"£82,249 wasted on research ? £52 ,000 on radio adverts ? Why ?

LINK members should question accountability and responsibility for our money , stop expenditure on expensive lunches , laptops and employing personal assistants for any Core Group member . Who controls the LINK , where is the accountability , investigations into LINK workings not published , good staff gone , a bitter tasted left ? Do not vote for me ."

Now there is a person to vote for !!!

After reading further reports that are lodged with the Birmingham City Council Health Overview Scrutiny Committee on the 15th December we judge the problem lies inside the structure of LINK combined with the way it assumed many inexperienced people might skillfully monitor health .

After looking at all the Birmingham LINK's minutes on the site and alleged "training" we cannot see anything there that resembles training that would have led to services broadly being held to account in a skillful manner. On the other hand we can see several gems of good practice and they appear to have risen out of PPI Forum related practice and good-willed people . Fewer though than Birmingham people should have expected from March 2008 when the PPI fora ended to 2011 .

The diagram structure of the LINK looks cybernetic to us and scared our office dog . One citizen journalist ( from the US) asked if the diagram was of : "BORGINGHAM LINK" ?

"Have they assimilated creativity and dropped it somewhere ? "

And we replied (yeah all of we)

"Don't say that ! We never snigger at your american foul-ups like the sub prime crisis we are all bloody paying for now .. " (hah that taught them )

But here's the diagram of the Brummie hive - WHOOPS sorreeee we mean the "LINK" which may be liked by centipedes in Birmingham that like things with lots of legs

UW

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Will the Birmingham Local Involvement Network become fit for purpose ?

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Cartoon Starring HSJ Mogger

Will the Birmingham Local Involvement Network (Health Watchers)
become fit for purpose and a competent HealthWatcher ?

LINK Watching is a hobby of many in the health field . Some lay monitoring LINK's set up to monitor health (2008) have been disastrous .

The Birmingham LINK has been half limping really , here and there with some despair , and appears though to have been monitoring parts of the local health scene in Birmingham with a certain degree of competence but also it has been flat-lining around too .

Yet rumors have surfaced that it has also been used by some people to network with and so that their own self interests are looked after . Looking at the LINK records on the Birmingham LINK site reveals strengths in some lay monitoring on Kidney Dialysis and engagement with Post Natal depression that was effective . There is some good work in Mental Health with consultations being put under the microscope and challenged - the older age groups appear to be engaged with thoughtfulness .

Yet there appears a lot of dead weight in the structure of the Birmingham LINK and broad evidence of all the groups practicing good monitoring standards does not exist .

Into the beginning of 2011 comes a LINK election for "Core Group" members ... Oh dear - will this be more of the same bureau-link practice that has characterized the way public energy and money has been mis-targeted in parts of the LINKs nationally .

We have viewed one Councillor Sue Anderson's views expressed to Gov't consultation about Adult Social Care and accountability ref the Birmingham LINK on the pages where you can search the council's reports and committee minutes . The Gov't consultation asks in one document (and she answers) :

12. Would you support an assurance role for the local Health Watch in
the production of accounts?

"Yes as part of the overall arrangements. The city Council has well established arrangements for reaching out to the broader citizenship. When the Link was formed there was an optimistic expectation that it would reach out to the wider citizenship and assist in forming citizen jury’s and groups we could engage with on moves to personalisation for example. It has been disappointing to date that the Link has tended to narrowly reflect its own membership and has not reached out. The extent of the role for Health Watch will depend on its ability to reach out to the broader community and become a more representative voice and an enabler of wider consultation. The City Council would welcome and will take a lead role in ensuring Health Watch takes on this broader role so it could be relied on more as a representative body for purposes of assurance and indeed informing service development. "

Certainly viewing all the Birmingham LINK Core Group minutes does not show cross group strategic communication that is competent and fluidly effective ..

So it is with all this baggage that the new candidates joust and who might just oust some of the older structure to make new growth and far wider competent Health and Social Care monitoring in Birmingham exist

UW

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LINKS Get Stabbed Malcolm Rescues By Sheer Wayne-ish Cheek

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Well Old NALM And its NALMITE Kids have smacked the DOH's ass
regarding accidentally putting out messages to underfund Lay Health Monitoring
Local Involvement Networks. Ooo-ee those tricky little accidents ...Tut , Tut ...

Over to NALM's site for the story where Big Malk Wayne rode in :

Or read below

Today (21 January 2011), NALM met with Ian Winter, the Deputy Regional (London) Director, Social Care and Partnerships at the Department of Health, and Sarah Crossland, LINks/Local HealthWatch Policy Manager, Public and Patient Experience and Engagement Department, to discuss the Joint Improvement Partnership (JIP ) report on funding of LINks.

It was agreed that LINk should have been actively engaged in the process of preparing the report for the JIP. It also became clear that the statement that ‘the base funding for a LINk, net of population and needs weighting, has been estimated by the DH to be £80k’, is not based on DH policy. The statement has now been withdrawn.

It was also agreed that it is inappropriate for local authorities to have leverage on the work of LINks (although, of course, they do have leverage on Hosts where there is a contract). Ian Winter has apologised and has withdrawn the document.

A revised document will be produced. The meeting was positive, open and constructive and NALM appreciated the approach.

I shall let you have a copy of the revised document when it is produced. As I understand the position, the DH has funded LINks for 2011-12 at the same level as this year, plus inflation. Therefore, local authorities have freedom to fund your LINk at the same level as this year.

(Statement From Malcolm Alexander)

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