What does the LINk do?
The LINk are here to represent your views to the people who make decisions on all health and social care services that are paid for with public money.
The LINk does NOT deal with children’s services but can look at children’s hospital wards. The LINk deals with issues that affect groups of people from a particular geographic area such as: Gedling or Newark and groups of interest such as Minority Communities or Older people for example. The LINk does NOT deal with individual complaints.
What is the LINk?
The Local Involvement Network (LINks) is a voluntary group set up to tackle issues faced by service users of public health and social care services. The LINk is made up of local volunteers from across the County who use health and social care services and represent other service users in their area. The LINk is independent and the people who volunteer for the LINk contribute their time because they are interested in making changes and improvements to the health and social care services in the County of Nottinghamshire.
The LINk comprises of an executive Board that is responsible for strategic decisions and a communications working group that works to promote the LINk and produce updates for the public. In addition the LINk has several working groups that look at the issues received from the public and make recommendations to the Executive Board.
The LINk has the power to ‘enter and view’ services if they receive reports from the public about a particular service or issue. If the LINk conduct an ‘enter and view’ they will send an authorised representative who is trained to assess the service and report back on any findings. The LINk will then make recommendations to service managers, commissioners and the local authority as appropriate.
Why does the LINk exist?
The LINk exists to give patients a say in how their health and social care services are planned and managed. It allows people to feedback on their experiences and ensures that health and social care services are effective and adequate to meet the needs of local patients and service users. The LINk exists to provide a stronger local voice for all communities in Nottinghamshire.
Where are we based
The LINk Board and participants are supported by a team of engagement workers, Communications worker, research specialist, BME outreach worker and an administrator. The team is overseen by a team leader and operations manager. The LINks team are based in Nottingham at Southglade Business Park. You can find full details for the LINk team on our contact us page.
How can you get involved?
If you are interested in health and social care and would like to contribute to improving provisions in your area or for a particular community you can become a LINk participant.
As a participant you can choose how active you want to be within the LINk and you can choose from the following options:
- Become a Participant and simply complete surveys at home, by post or online and make sure your views are heard on health and social care issues that interest you.
- Join a working group and help to assess the issues received by the LINk and work to find solutions and recommendations to service providers and managers.
- Train to become an authorised representative and conduct ‘enter and views’ on behalf of the LINks when appropriate.
- Work with the communications and engagement group to promote the LINks and communicate its work to members of the public, local authorities and service providers.
- Represent the LINk at events in your area and attend meetings that help the LINk to know what’s happening in local communities and reach new groups.
You do not have to be a professional to join the LINk, all you need is an opinion on the services in your area. If you know lots of people you may know how they feel about their local services and what issues they have encountered, if so then you may want to consider becoming a participant of the Nottinghamshire LINk.
