East Lothian Community Health Partnership

Public Partnership Forum

Working Agreement

December 2009
Contents

Introduction

Aims and Objectives

Aims

Objectives

Principles

Membership

General

Equality and Diversity

Steering Group

Formal Membership (PPF members appointed to formal roles)

Chair and Vice Chair

Term of Office

Role of Chair

General

Places on the CHP

Decision Making Process

CHP Support and Information

General

Papers for CHP Meetings

Information from the CHP

Code of Conduct of Membership

General

Press Contact

NHS Complaints

Accountability

Dealing with Inappropriate Behaviour of PPF Membership

Monitoring and Evaluation

General

Role of the Scottish Health Council

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Introduction

  1. The East Lothian Public Partnership Forum is a partnership organisation. In accordance with the Scottish Executive guidance, the Forum is not a constituted organisation.
  2. Throughout this document the following definitions and abbreviations apply:
  • 'local people' is used to describe people who live in East Lothian,
  • 'the East Lothian Public Partnership Forum' is abbreviated to 'the PPF',
  • the East Lothian Community Health Partnership is the organisation that manages community health services in East Lothian,
  • the 'East Lothian Community Health Partnership' is abbreviated to 'the CHP'.

Aims and Objectives

Aims

  1. The PPF aims:
  2. To inform local people about local health services and provide information about healthy living,
  3. To discuss how to improve local health services with local people,
  4. To involve local people in planning and making decisions about local health services,
  5. To assist the Community Health Partnership in designing local health services that can be used by all local people,
  6. To develop new ways of involving local people in improving local health services,
  7. To promote the Public Partnership Forum to local people.

Objectives

  1. In partnership with the CHP the PPF hopes:
  2. To encourage local people to participate in health service reviews and to inform and improve local NHS provision, tapping into local knowledge and fresh ideas,
  3. To learn from patients' and families' experience,
  4. To change attitudes of local people towards health services where appropriate (e.g. improve young people's understanding of the code of conduct for confidentiality),
  5. To improve public understanding of health services, and therefore more appropriate use of them,
  6. To help improve the health of 'difficult to reach' groups,
  7. To work in partnership with local organisations, for example Dialogue Youth, the East Lothian Community Care Forum, and the Community Councils in East Lothian.

Principles

  1. The PPF will:
  2. Respect and value the individual,
  3. Listen to, hear and act upon what people say.

Membership

General

  1. The PPF will be open to people who live in East Lothian and people who work for an organisation that represents communities within East Lothian such as voluntary and community groups.
  2. The PPF will strive to include people from different age groups and different backgrounds.
  3. An Administrator (based at the CHP) will hold, in confidence, personal details for each PPF member, including:-

- name

- address

- other contact details

- health interests

- life experience/knowledge/skills (to enable tasks to be allocated accordingly)

  1. Members of the PPF will abide by the Code of Conduct set out in this document.

Equality and Diversity

  1. As one of the representative voices in the community, the PPF will strive to include those who may be at greater risk of barriers to participation

Steering Group

  1. The PPF will have a Steering Group that will meet as often as the CHP.
  2. Membership of the Steering Group is open to all PPF members.

Formal Membership (PPF members appointed to formal roles)

  1. The Steering Group will have a Chair and Vice-Chair, who will not be delegates to the CHP, and will be elected by the whole PPF membership. The selection process and timetable are detailed in Appendix 1.

Chair and Vice Chair

Term of Office
  1. A Chair and Vice Chair will be elected every year by democratic process (see appendix 1). The Chair or Vice Chair can stand for a maximum of 3 years. They may serve again but only after a break of 2 years.
Role of Chair
  1. To chair PPF meetings in a responsible and accountable fashion.
  2. Raise issues with the Patient & Community Involvement Worker about topics/areas of interest on behalf of the PPF.
  3. With the full knowledge of PPF members and the Patient & Community Involvement Worker, respond to letters and invitations on behalf of the PPF and sign off on any official correspondence on behalf of the PPF.
  4. Liaise with the PPF Administration Support Assistant or Patient & Community Involvement Worker to compile agenda’s and check minutes of meetings before distribution.
  5. The PPF may also ask the Chair or Vice Chair to step down before their term ends where the agreed code of conduct / working agreement has been breached (see Appendix 2 - Processes and Rules governing Formal Membership).

General

  1. Membership of the Steering Group will be determined at the first General Meeting of the PPF in any calendar year. There must be 5 members of the Steering Group present at any Steering Group meeting for it to be quorate.
  2. The Steering Group for the PPF will help co-ordinate the work and views of the PPF.
  3. Steering Group members should attend a minimum of 4 meetings per year.
  4. Minutes from Steering Group meetings will be distributed to all PPF steering group members (plus those PPF members who request full minutes). A summary of the minutes will be sent to all PPF members. This will be done within 14 working days.
  5. The PPF will form any groups or subgroups as required.
  6. The remit of any group or subgroup will be provided by the Steering Group, or the organisation setting up the group when requesting PPF member participation.
  7. PPF members with special interest will be identified to participate in any relevant groups formed.

Places on the CHP

  1. There will be 2 places on the CHP sub-committee for PPF members.
  2. A role description for the CHP representatives will be circulated to all PPF members.
  3. To give continuity the terms of the two representatives will overlap ensuring expertise is not lost. Only one representative will be elected each year for a 2 year term and will serve a maximum of 2 terms. They may serve again but only after a break of 2 years.
  4. If there is more than one applicant for a position, a vote will take place (see Appendix 1).
  5. Each representative shall have a deputy who will be appointed on a similar basis as the representative.
  6. NHS employees cannot volunteer for a place on the CHP.
  7. The representatives and deputies will attend Steering Group meetings regularly.

Decision Making Process

  1. There will be two General Meetings of the PPF. The first in January where part of the business will be to elect the Chair, Vice Chair and CHP Representative and agree the composition of the Steering Group for the coming year. The second in the summer.
  2. Steering Group business meetings will be open to all PPF members.
  3. General or Issue based meeting of the PPF will be open to all members of the PPF and the public.
  4. Decisions will be by consensus but in the event this is not possible, a vote will be taken with decisions by a simple majority.
  5. Each member of the PPF present at a Steering Group meeting will have one vote.

CHP Support and Information

General

  1. PPF members will gather the views of the wider community on issues, which affect the work of the CHP. They will require appropriate support, training and development on an ongoing basis.
  2. A 'support team' will work with the PPF to assess their training and development needs and act on these as appropriate. This could include media training for nominated members, and public speaking training if PPF members are going out to speak to groups.
  3. The CHP will make available to members of the PPF appropriate information, staff, facilities, secretarial/administrative support and any other services necessary to allow them to fulfil their role. In particular administrative support will be required to distribute papers, take minutes, book venues, administer expenses etc.
  4. The CHP will provide adequate financial support to allow the PPF to fulfil its role and prevent any barriers to participation. This will include member’s expenses (i.e. travel and childcare/carer's costs) when carrying out PPF work. Expenses forms will be signed by the General Manager (or Deputy) of the CHP.

Papers for CHP Meetings

  1. Papers for CHP meetings will be circulated to the PPF representatives on the CHP, at least 10 days before the CHP meeting.

Information from the CHP

  1. The CHP will provide the PPF with information about all the services that are available from the CHP.
  2. The CHP will provide the PPF with information about resources allocated to CHP services.
  3. The CHP will provide appropriate face to face financial briefings to the PPF.
  4. The CHP will provide information in a variety of formats: website, email, text, large print, Braille etc.

Code of Conduct of Membership

General

  1. Members must respect confidentiality regarding issues where individuals may be identified and operate within the boundaries of data protection guidelines.
  2. Members will not normally have one-to-one contact with members of the public or patients, either in their own homes or in health service premises when carrying out work on behalf of the PPF.
  3. If one-to-one contact with members of the public is required for a particular piece of work, the Steering Group will consider whether 'Disclosure Scotland' checks are appropriate.
  4. Members must not use the forum as a platform for political or religious views.
  5. Members will not bring PPF into public disrepute.
  6. Individual members may act on behalf of the PPF only when explicitly directed to do so by the Steering Group.
  7. Members will declare any conflict of interest, or any potential conflict of interest.
  8. It is recognised that PPF members will be from all walks of life and therefore experiences and subsequent views will be varied across the group. Each member is expected to respect the views of other members, while accepting they may not necessarily agree with these.
  9. The PPF members need to recognise the importance of creating an environment within meetings where individual members feel confident in expressing their own views, in the knowledge that they will be listened to.
  10. Informal chatting before and after meetings is a useful way for members to get to know one another, however, when a meeting is in progress this is unacceptable.

Press Contact

  1. Any press enquiries made to the Chair of the PPF will liaise with the CHP Director of Communications before responding.
  2. Members must not speak to the press on behalf of the PPF unless previously agreed.

NHS Complaints

  1. The East Lothian PPF, or individual members, must not be involved in raising or dealing with individual complaints about NHS staff and/or services. However, the East Lothian PPF will provide people who want to make a complaint with accurate information about the formal process for doing this.

Accountability

  1. Members will be accountable to the whole PPF.
  2. Members will be accountable to the public.
  3. Members will be responsible for feeding back information, if representing an organisation.

Dealing with Inappropriate Behaviour of PPF Membership

  1. If 2 or more members express the view that another PPF member has acted inappropriately (e.g. breaching the Code if Conduct or working agreement), this will be referred to the Steering Group.
  2. The Steering Group will decide whether measures will be taken to deal with any inappropriate behaviour.
  3. If the complaint is against a member of the Steering Group it will be referred directly to the PPF Administrator or Patient & Community Involvement Worker.

Monitoring and Evaluation

General

  1. The Steering Group will regularly review the PPF's aims and objectives in a quantifiable way to ensure they are being met, and will make changes wherever possible to ensure this.
  2. The PPF working agreement will be reviewed annually but may be amended at any time if required.
  3. The PPF will measure its success in the early stages by:
  4. Reviewing how well information flows between the PPF and the CHP,
  5. Reviewing the working relationship between the PPF and the CHP,
  6. Monitoring the change in PPF membership numbers.

Role of the Scottish Health Council

  1. The Scottish Health Council will provide quality assurance in terms of whether or not NHS Lothian is effectively carrying our their statutory duties to involve the public and promote equality of opportunity through the Public Partnership Forum.
  2. To fulfil this role, the Scottish Health Council will:
  3. Monitor the development of the Public Partnership Forum,
  4. Assess how well the Community Health Partnership engages with the Public Partnership Forum,
  5. Provide advice and support to the Public Partnership Forum in carrying out their role and in identifying support needs to be met by the Community Health Partnership.
  6. Members of the Scottish Health Council Local Advisory Council will engage with Public Partnership Forum members and can be part of the Public Partnership Forum itself in order to fulfil this scrutiny role. Local Advisory Council members will be required to declare any conflict of interest that may arise from this arrangement and are ineligible to represent the Public Partnership Forum on the Community Health Partnership.

Appendix 1

This appendix covers the selection and voting process for the positions of Chair and Vice-Chair of the PPF and PPF Representative and Deputy PPF Representative to the CHP. The chair, vice-chair and secretary were first appointed in January 2007 with the CHP representatives appointed in February 2007. This appendix formalises when these elections take place to ensure consistency of approach.

At the start of November each year the PPF Administrator will circulate all members of the PPF and advise that nominations are due for the respective positions. This mailing will include the role description for the CHP Representative. Notes of interest should be submitted to the PPF Administrator by the end of November.

If there is only one applicant for each position available, that person will be deemed as being elected unopposed and will start their term from the January of the next year.

Where there is more than one applicant, the PPF Administrator will inform the PPF membership and will request applicants to attend the General Meeting of the PPF in January where they will be invited to speak briefly (no more than 3 minutes) to those in attendance.

Each member of the PPF will have one vote. Voting will normally be conducted in person at the January General Meeting using a ballot paper.

Eligibility for voting is determined as a member having attended at least 4 business meetings of the PPF in the current year. Any member who joins after 1st December will not be eligible to vote.

A PPF member unable to attend, can appoint another member to vote “in proxy” for them but must give the proxy a written statement to that effect to enable the proxy to obtain an additional ballot paper.

A simple, numbered, ballot paper will be produced by the PPF Administrator with the names of the candidates and a voting box alongside each name. If only two people are contesting the position, an X will be sufficient to designate voting intention. A simple majority will suffice. If more than two people are contesting the position, the count will be conducted by Single Transferable Vote (STV) where voters will rank candidates in order of preference using 1,2,3 etc.

If the person with most votes at the first stage has 50% plus 1 of the votes cast they will be elected. If not the person at the bottom of the poll will be eliminated and their 2nd preference votes allocated to the remaining candidates. The 2nd preference votes will not have the full value of the vote transferred but one half of a vote. For example, Candidate C's 2nd preference votes are 20 for A and 10 for B so only 10 additional votes are added to A and 5 to B. If someone still doesn't have 50% plus 1 of the votes cast the next person at the bottom will be eliminated and their 2nd preference votes allocated. However, if only 2 candidates are left after the first round, a simple majority taking the re-allocated votes into account will suffice.

Appendix 2

Processes and Rules Governing Formal Membership of PPF

(Chair or Vice Chair, CHP representatives)

If for any reason the Chair or Vice Chair or CHP Representatives are unable to continue in post then a written resignation letter should be formally handed to the Patient & Community Involvement Worker and taken to the next PPF meeting for approval by other members of the PPF.