RCN Scotland responds to proposals for direct elections to health boards

Published: 26 June 2008

This week the Scottish Government have proposed legislation which would introduce direct elections to health boards across Scotland. In response, RCN Scotland have said that there is a need to elevate the role that the public and patients play in decision-making in the NHS, and that there are many opportunities for the public to be involved but these are not well known and would benefit greatly from enhancement and investment.

Theresa Fyffe, Director of RCN Scotland, said:

“The concept of a mutual NHS should apply across the whole system, including the make-up of the health board structure.

“Each NHS board already consists of stakeholder members: an elected member from each local council and members representing NHS staff and local clinicians. We believe a similar position should be created to represent public and patients, providing a balance in the health boards’ composition. This position could be a representative of the local Public Partnership Forum.

“There is also no doubt that the opportunities, such as the new Independent Scrutiny Panels, Community Health Partnerships and Public Partnership Forums should be better promoted to allow the public to engage in the decision-making process.

“Direct elections will not necessarily result in improved public and patient involvement and if introduced now, would not allow the range of recently launched initiatives to flourish, which are designed to result in genuine engagement from the grassroots up.

“Alarmingly, the estimated costs of direct elections have gone up from £5m, as indicated in the original Scottish Government consultation, to over £13m. As this is to come from existing budgets we need a commitment from Government that this money will not be diverted from frontline care.

“RCN Scotland calls on MSPs in all parties to closely scrutinise this legislation and consider all the options available to involve the public better in the NHS without damaging patient care”.