National Voices – new organisation off to a flying start
National Voices – new organisation off to a flying start
The recently formed National Voices – a national organisation that represents users of health and social care organisations in the voluntary sector – today (Thursday 16 October 2008), reinforced its position as the most potentially powerful, national campaigning alliance in health and social care, following the decision of the Long-term Conditions Alliance (LTCA) to merge with the organisation. The decision, taken at an LTCA extraordinary general meeting, means that more than 100 additional organisations will join National Voices in its work to ensure that politicians, professionals and regulators listen to service users and their views on a range of issues from NHS Constitution, reform of social care and top-up payments.
National Voices chief executive, David Pink, said: “LTCA members include big campaigning charities such as Macmillan and they will now join with others from across the health and social care spectrum. LTCA has been the most effective campaigning voice for patients in the UK and its ‘17 million reasons’ campaign was instrumental in changing health service policy in this country before the last general election. I am confident that following this merger, National Voices will be even more effective. It will ensure that health and social care policy-makers listen to service users.”
The co-chair of National Voices, and chief executive of Breakthrough Breast Cancer, Jeremy Hughes, added: “LTCA’s endorsement of National Voices is fantastic news, and puts it into an even greater position of strength. The launch of National Voices is one of the voluntary sector’s most significant developments and will make a real difference to the thousands of service users that we represent.”
Harry Cayton, a fellow co-chair and ex-Patient Csar, said: “We need to work much harder at keeping the views of service users at the heart of national policy. I have supported the idea of National Voices for years and I am thrilled by the farsighted decision of members of LTCA. At last we will have this new national network to ensure that user voices are treated as importantly as the voices of service providers.”
