Public involvement in health care: Public involvement is needed at highest level

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7437.462-a

BMJ 2004;328:462 (21 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7437.462-a

Letter

Public involvement in health care

Public involvement is needed at highest level

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Florin and Dixon bring coherence and clarity towhat has hitherto been a muddled debate.¹ Two things are worthadding.

Firstly, the more devolved and local public involvement in healthpolicy development becomes the more the government's nationalstrategy and targets become givens. The public was not involvedin the British government's decision to focus on mortality andcure (which are easily measurable) at the expense of long termmedical conditions that chiefly affect the quality of people'slives. But that focus has become a given that will dominatethe development of local health policy. If governments wishto provide the sort of health care people want, public involvementin health strategy development is needed at the highest level.

Secondly, a tendency prevails to see public involvement as somethingseparate from the rest of health policy development insteadof an integral part of it. Dermatology is an exception.

. . . [Full text of this article]

Peter M Lapsley, chief executive

Skin Care Campaign, London N19 5NA peter.lapsley@btopenworld.com