§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps are being taken by the Commission for Public Patient Involvement to ensure that(a) residents and (b) patients can find the names of members of local patients' forums. [172522]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonAny member of the public can contact their local patients' forum through the forum support organisations (FSO); their details are on the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health website at www.cppih.org.
Names of individual members are made available to the primary care trust and national health service trust that the patients' forum is working with, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 requirements.
Individual members' names are not currently widely available to the public for technical reasons linked to the Data Protection Act. The Commission is, however, working with all forums to enable wide availability of members' names.