Influencing Commissioning in Health and Social Care. How the LINk can add value to public engagement

PURPOSE This report is based on extensive interviews, focus groups and other research carried out between May and October by a team from the Welsh Institute for Health and Social Care, University of Glamorgan. The purpose was to look at how the Birmingham LINk could be most effective in influencing the commissioners of health and social care in the city. It describes what an influential LINk would look like to commissioners; it also looks at what commissioners need to do to facilitate the work of the LINk. The emphasis throughout is on ‘adding value’ to patient, service user, carer and public engagement, by creating an effective partnership between the LINk and the NHS and City Council, which recognises the independence of all parties, and the need on occasion for constructive criticism.