Community Health Councils (Hansard, 10 July 1990)

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, membership of community health councils will remain as it is now. Their role will remain fundamentally unchanged. District health authorities will be expected to take careful account of the views of their resident population on the overall pattern of service which they plan to secure, and community health councils will play an important role in that.

§ Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. But is he aware that because there have been so many changes recently to the 113 National Health Service the consumer organisations feel that it is very important that they should know exactly how the patients will be represented?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, in writing to the Select Committee in response to its eighth report of 1989, has already made clear that he sees no change in the fundamental role of community health councils. The White Paper proposals that are now being taken into the Act do not add to the CHC's duties or burdens, but obviously the role will have to be clarified to cater for the change in the function of the districts from providers to purchasers of services.

§ Lord Ennals
My Lords, is the Minister aware how grateful I am to him for having clarified the fact that there will need to be a change in the role of community health councils? Does he accept that, under the new style of commercial management of the health authorities, it is even more important that the views of the consumers of health services should be fully understood and taken into consideration? In answer to the noble Baroness he stated that there will be some change. Is it not time that that change was known to the community health councils and to the many voluntary organisations which look to and have members on the community health councils?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Lord took me slightly further than I meant to go. I was not clarifying how their role would change. I said that the fundamental role of CHCs will remain the same as it is now. However, because of the change in function of the districts, that role will have to be clarified. I can say at this stage only that guidance will be issued in due course on clarification of that role.

§ Lord Ennals
My Lords, when is "in due course"? The community health councils and the voluntary organisations are intensely interested in the health service. They wish to know what the future holds for them.

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give a date. I can assure the noble Lord that it will be soon.

§ Lord Hunter of Newington
My Lords, will the Minister clarify the other part of the Question about future membership? He made some oblique reference to it. However, if the Government consider it an important body, I should have thought that its membership is of vital importance.

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, as I made clear in my original Answer, we have no plans for changing the membership of community health councils. The membership will remain as it is at the moment; that is, one half appointed by local authorities, a third by local voluntary organisations and a sixth by the regional health authority.

Lord Wallace of Coslany
My Lords, while I am delighted at the news that the noble Lord has given, is he aware that it is vitally important that the views of the community health councils should be regarded by regional and other authorities with greater care than they sometimes are at present?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, I take note of what the noble Lord says. It is for the district health authorities to take note of the views of the community health councils. That is the role of the community health councils.

§ Lord Mellish
My Lords, is the Minister aware that some of us have experience of the ways in which community health councils operate vis-à-vis district health authorities? I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, will well remember one instance that I call to mind. A community health council said, "This hospital will not close, and we shall do all we can in that respect." However, the district health authority plus the Minister of the day said that it would close, and it did. That does not make the community health council very important.

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, of course those councils are important. Just because one body gives its view of how matters should develop does not mean that the district authority and the Minister should follow what it says.

§ Lord Stallard
My Lords, can the Minister assure us that the community health councils will have a role? A great many people fear—and the reply from the Minister and the delay involved will do nothing to alleviate that fear—that those councils have been given no role and nor will they be given a role. They fear that no criteria will be laid down, and that eventually they will be chopped off. The real fear is that they will be dispensed with altogether because no role is laid down for them.

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, I thought that at the Dispatch Box I was giving an assurance that the fundamental role of the CHCs would remain as it is now.

§ Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, what happens if a hospital trust gets into difficulty? What will then be the role of the community health council?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, the community health council is there to advise and to make recommendations to the districts. As the noble Baroness will know, in Community Health Councils (Amendment) Regulations which were laid at the beginning of this month and which come into force on 27th July, the role of community health councils will be expanded to inspect premises of both the regions and National Health Service trusts. As I have stated, the fundamental role of the CHCs will remain. In those circumstances, obviously the regions will consult the CHCs on the formation of a NHS trust. In the very unlikely eventuality of the closure of a NHS trust, again they would be consulted.