Public involvement in health care: Process needs to be transparent and open

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7437.462-b

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

Letter

Public involvement in health care

Process needs to be transparent and open

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

EDITOR—Florin and Dixon raise important points about theneed for clarity on the issue of increased public involvementin decision making in the NHS.¹ Two points are worth emphasising.

Firstly, the entire process could be reduced to a tickbox exercisein which trusts co-opt "tame" representatives to rubber stampdecisions.

Secondly, "professional" public representatives could emergewhose views are not necessarily representative of the public'sand who turn up as public representatives on every committeeand board.

The process by which the public is involved in making healthservice decisions needs to be transparent and open and may requireextra effort, to ensure that the process is indeed inclusive.

Ike Anya, specialist registrar, public health

Bristol North Primary Care Trust, Bristol BS2 8EE ikechuku.anya@lshtm.ac.uk

Competing interests: IA is employed by the NHS.