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The NHS Alliance are now beginning the debate on "Whose NHS is it Anyway?" The idea is to stimulate a national debate on accountability. They hope to receive a range of ideas and advice. After 3 months or so, they intend to pull the ideas together to produce a paper that offers a way forward.

The Alliance would like everyone to place comments on the website. They shall be asking a wide range of people for their views and they hope to have an excellent fruit salad of opinions!

The following letter has been sent out to NHS Alliance members, who have been asked to circulate to other interested parties.

Dear Member,

'Whose NHS is it anyway?' is a timely question. The new NHS Constitution says "The NHS belongs to the people".  What does that really mean to patients, carers, NHS board members, GPs, nurses and leaders at local and national level?

Help us bring the NHS Constitution to life and raise everyone's understanding of what it means to be the 'owners' of the NHS.

We are inviting you to participate as an invited debater, along with leaders from the political, health professional, trade union, local government, third sector and user involvement worlds.

To kick off a UK-wide online debate about accountability in the NHS and to provide a focus for contributions to the debate, we have produced a position paper Whose NHS Is It Anyway?. Click on the link below to download a copy

Whose NHS is it anyway
http://email.nhsalliance.org/rp//301/process.clsp?t=22FBDBC91D82CA6AB2F840BD130CDAE80

We pose six questions about NHS accountability which we'd like to have your views on, as well as our practical suggestions for patient and public involvement in the NHS 'with teeth'. 

Please join us in stimulating a wide-ranging debate on accountability in the NHS. Although the debate doesn't formally start until 20 October, we would like to give our members the opportunity to be the first ones to voice their views. We look forward to having your contribution.

You can post your comments at
http://healthcaregovernance.typepad.com/whose_nhs_is_it_anyway

Yours sincerely

Dr Michael Dixon
Chair, NHS Alliance

Dr Brian Fisher
PPI Lead, NHS Alliance