Health needs champions

4:46pm Thursday 7th August 2008

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A NEW organisation, being set up in Herefordshire to help guide the whole population through the pros and cons of health and social care matters, is looking for support.

It will be a kind of public watchdog, helping people who feel they have a grievance to make their complaint but also giving others the chance to put forward ideas that can make all services better in the long term It is called LINk Herefordshire and it is canvassing the county looking for 20 volunteers – or champions – to get it up and running.

Eight meetings have been planned across the county with the aim of explaining the role of LINk and recruit volunteers.

LINk is a new national initiative funded through the Department of Health and will replace previous watchdogs known as Public and Patient Involvement Groups at Hereford Hospitals Trust and Herefordshire PCT.

The new LINk, a charity, will have a wider remit, covering the well being of 180,000 people in the county for health and social care matters.

The team leader is Mike Vialls, who is employed by the National Carers Federation, responsible for facilitating LINk in Herefordshire.

He said its work would cover a wide range of services.

The public would be urged to make known where improvements could be made and people who wanted to complain could do so anonymously.

He said the job of the 20 ‘champions’ would be to form a steering group to manage how LINk will be run.

The public meetings are planned to take place: today (Thursday), The Burton Hotel, Kington; Tuesday, August 12, The Kindle Centre, Asda, Hereford; Wednesday, August 13, Community Centre, Peterchurch; Tuesday, August 14, at Wigmore Village Hall; Tuesday, August 19, The Falcon Hotel, Bromyard; Wednesday, August 20, St Katherine’s Hall, Ledbury; and Tuesday, August 26, Royal British Legion, South Street, Leominster.

Meetings will take place from 3pm to 5pm and 6pm to 8pm.

What do you think of the LINk idea? We want to know your views. Let us know at herefordtimes.com