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Winter 2009/2010 | |||||||
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Goodbye - from Richmond LINk's first Chair | ||||||
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"Having completed one year of chairing the LINk from its launch at the end of October last year and together with the steering committee and host team set the LINk on a firm foundation, I decided to stand down at the LINk’s recent AGM and make way for a new chair to lead the LINk forward as the borough’s independent local network charged with monitoring the commissioning and provision of health and social care for residents. Altogether, having chaired the previous Patient and Public Involvement Forum I have served three years as chair and I believe it beneficial for the organisation for a new chair to take over at this time. I am delighted that Bonnie Green has been elected to this role; she was a very able vice-chair during the first year and was personally a great support to me in my role. I was recently invited to speak at the All Party Parliamentary Group on Patient and Public Involvement at Westminster to express my views on what was needed to set up a successful LINk, both the barriers and opportunities. The government is keen to embed and strengthen LINks across the country as the prime independent voice for local communities. Our LINk has taken some successful first steps and I wish it well for the future."
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| Hello - from Richmond LINk's new Chair | |||||||
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"I’m very honoured to have been elected as the new chair. Margaret Dangoor is going to be a hard act to follow and I again thank her for all her hard work and dedication in getting Richmond LINk off the ground. We are now in a strong position to develop and take forward our work towards improving the planning and providing of health and social care for people throughout our borough. All our local providers of health and social care, as well the organisations that commission the services, will be facing tough times over the next few years as they are asked to contain costs. Meanwhile, there is a lot of work being undertaken London wide and across South West London looking at how quality can be improved across a range of health services such as for those for cancer, children, urgent and emergency care and mental health. We will continue to ensure that there is adequate patient and public involvement in all of this work. Quality and safety of care has been much in the news lately, for example, Mid Staffordshire Hospital and Basildon Hospital. We have a new working group on quality and it’s important to us to know what the experiences of our members and the community are of the local hospitals that provide our care. So I would urge you all to let us know about your experience of the quality of hospital care – whether it’s good or not so good. You can find out how to do this later on in this newsletter. Finally, I’d like to welcome the new members to our steering committee. They bring with them a fantastic range of personal experiences and skills which complement those of our existing committee members.  Bonnie Green | |||||||
| Feedback and Contact Details | |||||||
We want to hear from YOU!Contact Details Richmond upon Thames LINk Michael Derry Sarah Knapp
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Margaret Dangoor