Cluster Board meetings
The primary care trust cluster consiting of NHS Leicestershire County and Rutland and NHS Leicester City, as public organisations, hold board meetings in public in the interests of openness and to allow public scrutiny.
As a member of the public, you can attend public board meetings and download the papers for the next meeting or for previous meetings.
The Department of Health has provided guidance on how NHS board meetings should be run. Health Service Circular 1998/207 (the Guidance) summarises the relevant legislation and sets out good practice for board meetings.
Convening meetings
The board welcomes and encourages attendance at the meeting. Dates for all board meetings are advertised on our website.
Meetings are convened in accordance with the guidance. This includes:
- the date, time and location of the meetings which are publicised on our website
- suitable facilities for the public to attend the meeting; and
- the chair welcomes members of the public to meetings
Business of the meeting
Members of the public are welcome to attend meetings of the board which although being held in public are not public meetings. The guidance makes it clear that, unless decisions are made openly, accountability and transparency of the board is undermined.
Members of the public and press do not have speaking rights but are invited to ask questions or make comments at meetings, during a fifteen minutes slot at the end of board meetings. Any such questions should however, be in relation to an item on the agenda for that meeting and should relate to a further explanation or clarification of that agenda item. Members of the public who ask a question will be asked to identify themselves and to declare any formal affiliations.
From time to time there are occasions when NHS Leicestershire County and Rutland and NHS Leicester City will need to consider agenda items which are confidential and cannot be discussed in public. The Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings Act) 1960 permits a board of an NHS trust to pass a board resolution at the meeting to exclude the public and press from the meeting "whenever publicity would be prejudicial to the public interest by reason of the confidential nature of the business...or for other special reasons stated in the resolution".
Whenever a board resolution to conduct business in private is passed, the resolution itself should be made in public and should state in broad terms the nature of the business to be discussed.
The guidance also provides that if to discuss certain business or answer questions could cause real harm to individuals, then it may be done in private. The following are examples of business which will be discussed in private:
- the financial business of another person, other than the trust
- financial details or proposed contractual terms of any contract for goods or services, or the disposal or acquisition of land
The chair of the meeting
The chair has overall and final responsibility for the running of board meetings. The chair has discretion to ensure that all business is transacted in accordance with the guidance and relevant legislation.
Board meetings are open to the public Times and details of meetings are published on the trust's website.
The board's Annual General Meeting (AGM) is also open to the public.