UK Health Service Web-Casts “Citizen Summit”

For some time now, the UK’s National Health Service has been engaging the British public in a series of public “consultations” on various aspects of how well (or not) it delivers health care.  On Saturday, October 29^th, it held a nationally publicized public deliberation in the city of Birmingham, where 1,000 “ordinary citizens” were convened.  Four previous regional “listening exercises” were held leading up to this “culmination.”

An innovative aspect of this was that the entire process was web-casted live over the internet.  Other kinds of surveys were also used in the multi-phased, multi-media interaction between the government and some sort of sample of the general public. The method of selection, unfortunately,  remains shrouded in mystery. (See www.dh.gov.uk )

BBC’s report “Public Given Say on NHS Reform” on October 29, 2005 (www.bbc.co.uk ) calls these exercises “U.S. style Town Hall Meetings.”  In most cases, however, this phrase is a euphemism for American politicians interacting with  self-selected groups of citizens who have no input into actual policy-making.  It does bear a resemblance to the invention of America Speaks (www.americaspeaks.org ), but no mention of that was located in any of the official or media reports of the events.

Another seldom used method of recruiting citizen volunteers into the process was employed, i.e., paying them like the judicial system pays its jurors.  Each was paid 125 pounds to attend “so as to ensure a good cross section of society takes part.” (BBC) The goal was to get these 1,000 citizens to prioritize the future agenda of the NHS. Accordingly, the “public” emphasized improving more out-patient and community-based services.

The biggest question remains to be clearly answered in the future: To what extent do these “consultations” produce results?  NHS has promised to take the public’s desires into their decision-making.  However, it must be noted that NHS’s use long-term use of the “citizen jury process has been met with a lot of discussion and questions as to whether they produce more public relations than public input.

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