Local Involvement Networks

Local Involvement Networks (known as LINks) will be the new focus for people to have their say on the planning and improvement of local health and social care services.

A LINk will be established in each social services local authority area from April 2008. There will therefore be one LINk for the area of the city of Plymouth.

The LINk will be a community-based network made up of individuals and groups with an interest in health and social care. It will cover the geographical area of the local authority and be concerned with all publicly-funded health and social care services and also with broader issues that impact on the health of the local community. The LINk will need to be inclusive and diverse, with a wide range of participants, representative of the whole community throughout the area it covers.

The role of the LINk will be to:

• involve people in choosing, providing and checking health and social care services
• make reports and recommendations for improving health and social care and feeding back peoples' needs for, and experiences of, health and social care services to those responsible for providing those services.

The LINk will replace Patient and Public Involvement Forums (which currently exist for each NHS Trust and will be abolished on 31 March 2008); the LINk will not replace other groups or networks in the community, but will work with them and make it easier for them to have their say. The LINk will be run by local people and will operate independently of the city council and the NHS.

The Government has not set out in detail how a LINk will work, but wants that to be determined locally in the way that best suits the area. Councils in each area are taking the lead in bringing together relevant individuals and organisations to start to work out how the LINk will work in their area and to gather views.

The role of LINks and the responsibilities on the local authority to establish a LINk is set out in legislation in the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, which received Royal Assent in October 2007.

For details of the steering group meetings please visit our LINks meetings page.

Documents

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	LINks report - a scrutiny report which was considered by the Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Panel on 15 August 2007. File format Adobe Acrobat (pdf) - 22.8KB
	LINks workshop - notes from the LINks workshop held on 9 November 2007. File format Adobe Acrobat (pdf) - 115.1KB
	LINks minutes January 2008 - minutes of the LINks meeting held on 16 January 2008. File format Adobe Acrobat (pdf) - 39.8KB
	LINks minutes December 2007 - minutes of the LINks meeting held on 4 December 2007. File format Adobe Acrobat (pdf) - 50KB