Liverpool City Council has set up a committee to look at the way health services are provided within the city. The task for the scrutiny committee is to ensure that concerns of patients and families are made a priority. They will seek to understand issues relating to the service, how they affect the people of the city and Merseyside and make recommendations for improvement. Its remit will cover the city’s three primary care trusts and eight NHS based trusts as well as NHS services based outside the city to which Liverpool residents have access.Because the NHS is undergoing major changes the City Council believes it’s important to seek to examine, explain and influence decisions on behalf of patients. Some of the major issues within the NHS locally are provision of renal and ante-natal care. It is also likely that the scrutiny committee will investigate the quality of hospital meals, how patients are transported, and how the city council works with the NHS in response to emergencies. The committee will also act as a tool for change to encourage and promote healthier lifestyles to reduce the burden on the NHS.
Five local authority run schemes are among the winning projects across England that are to share 46 million pounds under the ‘Invest To Save’ initiative. The Prison Service, Crown Prosecution Service and Devon and Cornwall Police are among the other winners announced by the Treasury and the Cabinet Office.The Invest to Save scheme is designed to support projects involving ‘joined up’ public bodies working together to deliver innovative services more efficiently and in a way which is more responsive to local needs. The latest round of the initiative, the sixth, includes partnership bids from central government, local authorities and the voluntary sector.
By George Boyne and Gareth EnticottThis article challenges the assumption of the Audit Commission that the outcomes of the Comprehensive Performance Assessment reflect the attributes of local councils rather than the circumstances in which they operate. The authors focus on councils with a ‘poor’ rating, which is the lowest of five categories. They question whether these councils are in fact distinctive. The authors argue that organizational attributes are weak predictors of CPA performance. Because CPA ratings act as the trigger for Government intervention they believe that this issue should be looked at closely.