(2) if he will make it his policy to ensure that the Local Involvement Network Regulations 2008 require private sector providers of health and social care to allow members of local involvement networks reasonable access to their premises for the purpose of viewing and monitoring the quality of health and social care.
The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, set out important new arrangements for the involvement of patients and the public in health and social care, including Local Involvement Networks (LINks). LINks will enable local people to monitor local services irrespective of who provides them.
LINks will build on the work of voluntary and community sector groups; and, enable genuine involvement of a far greater number of people than is currently available, ensuring local communities have a stronger voice in the process of commissioning health and social care and enabling them to influence key decisions about the services they both use and pay for.
In order to ensure that independent sector providers—be they from the private or third-sector—cooperate with LINks, we will make Directions requiring primary care trusts and local authorities to ensure that their contracts with the independent and third sectors allow LINks entry to appropriate premises and access to appropriate information. This will ensure that LINks will have the same levels of access as they do in the public sector.
These changes are aimed at promoting open and transparent communication between communities and the health service, and will develop trust and confidence, increasing accountability to local people.
Under section 242 of the NHS Act 2006, all national health service organisations are required to involve service users in the planning, development and operation of health services. This duty does not apply directly to third sector and independent sector organisations.
NHS organisations which commission services from the third and independent sector must specify in their contractual arrangements that service users shall be systematically involved in the planning, development and operation of services and that such involvement shall be evidenced and reported as part of contract performance.
The involvement of users in services provided by third sector and independent sector organisations shall be developed and promoted in the forthcoming statutory guidance for section 242 to be published in summer 2008.