Birmingham Local Involvement Network Gets Reduced

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Tied To Action ? Or Is It A Jailed Approach ?

The Birmingham Local Involvement Network, a statutory health monitoring body, has only been funded lately for 7 of its Action (health monitoring) Groups according to sources and a text we have been sent. The funding in place for the Action Groups is only for the months of July , August , September-end . From Oct there will be a new contract and a new Host and there is likely to be new governance in place .

The Birmingham City Council have not funded the LINk Core Group which appears to have become an over-bureaucratic body riven with dissenters and some say it has been "useless" in terms of having any real role . The Action Groups appear to have proven that action is what counts and inward looking bureaucratic meetings do not . Its wastes money and time .

The function of the LINk Core Group was to manage the strategic directions of the overall LINk but it has not enamoured itself to the Council it appears . Neither did it succeed in creating a credible link between "elected" Core Group members and their suitability to be aiding the strategy of the Action Groups . This has been a topic of conversations in several Birmingham circles that have criticised the LINk Core Group .

The email text from Birmingham City Council regarding the reductions of support to just the Action Groups is below :

"Dear LINk Member,

We have now negotiated with Gateway Family Services, the existing Host organisation, for continued LINk Host maintenance for the Birmingham LINk to cover the three months from 1 July to 30 September 2011. We have established continuation of support for those LINk Groups that contribute to health or social care outcomes. On this basis, support for up to one meeting per month has been agreed for the following Groups:

Birmingham East and North Action Group
Enter and View
Heart of Birmingham Action Group
Older Persons Action Group
Mental Health Action Group
University Hospital Birmingham Action Group
Women's Health and Maternity Action Group

We would like to see all of these Groups working towards achieving benefits in health and social care in line with a work programme that is based on evidenced local need. The wider governance arrangements will be revisited once the new Host's contract has started in October. This approach has been agreed and endorsed by Councillor Sue Anderson.

In addition there has been provision for 4 consultation events over the 3 month period; the Birmingham LINk website will be maintained; the 0800 number will continue to operate; and, the insurance cover will remain at the same level as currently. Gateway will be processing LINk member expenses for activities that have been agreed in advance.

The Host is currently drafting a work plan for the three month period; further details will be issued once available. Many thanks for your continued interest and hard work in the LINk.

Head of Policy

Birmingham City Council
The Council House Extension,
2nd Floor,
Margaret Street,
Birmingham
B3 3BU"

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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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