What can you do as a ProPatient?

Good morning Councillor Collins. Good morning sir. We've talked a lot about this concept of pro-patient before. I hope you don't mind me saying but you are super pro-patient. Thank you. Can you tell us about some of your work? Yes I'm a borough councillor and have been this starting my 22nd year although in two tranches so 12 years in the first tranche and now coming up to 10 years in the second tranche. A lot of that time has been spent either on social services committees connected with health as well or on scrutiny panels and I'm the current chair as we speak of North West London Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Panel. What sort of work have you done in terms of being a pro patient over the years? I have been the advocate for the voice of the people at scrutiny level. People over money has always been my goal and they're not savings they're cuts so when people talk about saving money they're not they're talking about cutting services. So I know you've been active in terms of health care for all and particularly health care and access to health care for the visually impaired community being visually impaired yourself and this is really you know a very high-level political sort of work you've done. Do you have any advice for people who want to engage in pro-patient work and what they could possibly get involved in? Well my first advice is to look for a patient's forum or a patient's voice. That's a good way if you're coming in from the health angle. Sadly today the only other way of doing it is to join a a political party, to go independent. Yes, there are independent councillors, but to join a party and to build up your reputation within the party, but much more important than that is what I've done over the years, is I've built a rapport with my community. I think you have joined Healthshed and will be making content and sharing it online. Can Can you see this as a new era in terms of being able to do things without so much infrastructure, you know, potentially from your own home, sharing your experiences? I do, but the danger of that is whilst connecting with folk through video links, through online links, there's nothing better than to be able to speak face-to-face to people in a group. Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you very much for your insight. Thank you.