THE country’s network of patient forums, introduced a little over two years ago to give patients a say in the running of the NHS, is to be abolished in the latest reorganisation of the service, The Times has learnt.

Ministers are being accused of building NHS initiatives “on quicksand” after it emerged that another costly reform was to be dismantled. The latest move follows announcements of cuts in the number of health authorities and primary care trusts in England, only three years after their last multimillion-pound reorganisation.

It also comes after the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (CPPIH), a central body designed to promote patient views, was abolished within two years of being created. Politicians and health campaigners described the changes as typical of a Government addicted to rearranging and seemingly unaware of the financial toll as NHS deficits soar. The Tories say the NHS has been reorganised six times since 1997.

Set up in December 2003 to replace community health councils, patient forums were designed to promote the views of patients, carers and their families. All 572 NHS trusts had their own such forum, backed by the CPPIH. Joyce Robins, co-director of Patient Concern, said that although the forums had never made a great impact the Government had given them no chance to settle. “The Government is always chasing the latest eye-catching initiative, but that is all they seem to be interested in,” she said.

At a meeting this week of 200 patient forum leaders, Harry Cayton, the National Director for Patients and the Public, made it clear that the forums were unlikely to continue in their present form. Mr Cayton is the co-chairman of a panel that is due to report to ministers next month on the future of patient involvement in the NHS. His remarks suggest that patient forums are unlikely to be part of that future.

The disclosure comes just days after Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, confirmed that England’s 30 strategic health authorities were to be cut to 10. Last July the Department of Health proposed reducing the number of primary care trusts from 303 to 100.

Members of forums have been highly critical of the way they were set up and supported. The forum administration was farmed out by the CPPIH to “forum support organisations”, many of which were hopelessly inefficient or had little knowledge of the NHS.

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