National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002

Yn ddilys o 01/09/2003

16 Additional functions of PCT Patients’ Forums E+W

(1) A Patients’ Forum established for a Primary Care Trust (a “PCT Patients’ Forum”) has the following additional functions—

(a) providing independent advocacy services to persons in the Trust’s area or persons to whom services have been provided by, or under arrangements with, the Trust,

(b) making available to patients and their carers advice and information about the making of complaints in relation to services provided by or under arrangements with the Trust, and

(c) representing to persons and bodies which exercise functions in relation to the area of the Trust (including, in particular, any relevant overview and scrutiny committee) the views of members of the public in the Trust’s area about matters affecting their health.

(2) In subsection (1), references to services have the meaning given by section 15(8).

(3) It is also the function of a PCT Patients’ Forum—

(a) to promote the involvement of members of the public in the area of the Trust in consultations or processes leading (or potentially leading) to decisions by those mentioned in subsection (4), or the formulation of policies by them, which would or might affect (whether directly or not) the health of those members of the public,

(b) to make available advice and information to such members of the public about such involvement,

(c) to advise those mentioned in subsection (4) about how to encourage such involvement (including, in the case of bodies mentioned in subsection (4) to which section 11 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001 (c. 15) applies, advising them how to comply with the requirements of that section in relation to the area of the Primary Care Trust), and

(d) to monitor how successful those mentioned in subsection (4) are at achieving such involvement.

(4) Those referred to in subsection (3) are—

(a) Strategic Health Authorities whose areas include any part of the area of the Primary Care Trust,

(b) the Primary Care Trust itself,

(c) NHS trusts which provide services to patients in the area of the Primary Care Trust,

(d) other public bodies, and

(e) others providing services to the public or a section of the public.

(5) In section 12 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001 (which inserts a new section 19A concerning independent advocacy services into the 1977 Act), in that new section 19A, after subsection (6) there is inserted—

“(7) The Secretary of State may direct a Patients’ Forum established for a Primary Care Trust to exercise any of his functions under this section so far as they relate to independent advocacy services provided to persons in the area of the Primary Care Trust or persons to whom services have been provided by, or under arrangements with, the Trust; and if he does so—

(a) the functions of that Patients’ Forum are to be taken to include those functions, but

(b) the Patients’ Forum may not make any arrangements with itself under this section.”

(6) In this section—

• “carer” and “patient” have the same meaning as in section 15,

• “independent advocacy services” means services provided under section 19A of the 1977 Act (independent advocacy services),

• “relevant overview and scrutiny committee” has the same meaning as in section 15.