Ed & Training Committee 10 March 2011. Service User Involvement

At last week's Education and Training Committee (10 March 2011), there was an item on the agenda for discussion about 'service user involvement'. A difficult issue which had been discussed at previous meetings. A member of the exec had prepared a paper to help.

Discussion was opened in a careful and measured way by acting chair Jeff Lucas ('lay' council member, and Deputy Vice Chancellor at Bradford, where he is also Prof of Health Studies) who noted the absence of any definition of the term SUI. Is it a patient, a student, an employer? It is a very general notion. Di Waller (art therapist, council member and Professor at Goldsmiths College) backed him up - 'we need to know what we are on about before we put in another standard, a legal standard.' They both welcomed the opportunity to commission some research into the question before going ahead, tho Prof Lucas did note that the budget would only pay for 25 days of research time.

Then Joy Tweed (a lay council member, and part time lecturer in integrated governance in health care at Westminster Uni), who seemed frustrated and quite passionate, invoked a 'democratic right to be involved' and argued that 'even if we can't find research that it adds value, we need to do it'. She added a slogan to reinforce her point: 'nothing about us, without us'.

Penny Renwick (chiropodist/podiatrist, council member and associate dean of health, psychology and social care at Manchester Metropolitan University) said "I strongly support Joy, we have to get the boat on the river before we find the evidence', and John Donaghy (paramedic, council member, and lecturer at Hertfordshire Uni) said 'this is best practice in the NHS whether the evidence is good or bad'.

Anna van der Gaag (not a committee member, but Chair of the HPC, and a speech therapist) encouraged the committee to get going 'on a journey we don't know the end point of' and Marc Seale, CEO, brusquely chivvied things on by reminding the committee that 'this has been discussed ... you must give us a clear steer in an ambiguous ... we can't help you ... you must provide us with ammunition... we really need to get going ... if we do the research it will take till April ...' etc. Practical problems were thus thrust firmly out of view.

Jeff Lucas admitted defeat when he closed the discussion saying 'we believe it has been proven elsewhere,' he seemed somewhat cowed when he added 'we have this belief, this value'.

This committee of 19 people come together quarterly to make decisions which the HPC exec and administrators implement through the agency of the partners.

The standards are the instrument of legal power, delegated by Parliament via statutory instrument.