Public Questions for Board

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust welcomes feedback and questions from the public and from its members. The Trust holds a Board meeting in public once every other month.

Details of future meetings in public, together with agendas and minutes from previous Boards are all published on the Trust website.

How our Board Meetings work

Our Board meetings are held in public, rather than being public meetings: this means that the public are very welcome to attend but cannot take part.

However, people who live or work in the county or are affected by the work of the Trust (including members of the Trust who live outside of the County) may ask the Chair of the Trust Board a question on any matter which is within the powers and duties of the Trust.

10 minutes will be allocated within the public section of each Board meeting for written questions from the public to be answered.

Where it is not possible for all questions to be dealt with within this timeframe a written response will be provided to the questioner and copied to all Board members within seven working days of the meeting.

In exceptional circumstances, the Chair may extend the time period for public questions.

Subject matter for questions

The Chair has discretion on whether a question can be submitted for answer and reserves the right to reject written questions that they consider:

• are not on any matter that is within the powers and duties of the Trust;
• are defamatory, frivolous or offensive, or related to individual members of staff;
• are substantially the same as a question that has been put to a meeting of the Trust Board and been answered in the past six months;
• are substantially the same as a question that has previously been answered by the Trust through another process such as a Freedom of Information request or the NHS complaints process; or
• would require the disclosure of confidential or exempt information.

Process for submitting questions

The Trust has a process to support questions to be submitted to Board:

• A question may only be asked if it has been submitted in writing to the Corporate Governance Team;
• Questions must be submitted four clear working days before the date of the Board meeting;
• Questions must show the name and address of the person submitting the question, and if on behalf of an organisation, then its name and address of the organisation must also be stated;
• The Trust requires that these are questions rather than statements to allow the maximum number of questions and to allow for responses;
• No more than three written questions may be submitted;

Procedure at the Board meeting held in public

At the Board meeting the questioner, if present, will be invited to read out the question.

If absent, the Chair may read out the question. A written answer will be provided to a written question and will be given to the questioner and to members of the Trust Board before being read out at the meeting by the Chair.

Copies of the questions and the responses will be recorded in a log of public questions and posted on the website.

A questioner who has submitted a written question may, with the consent of the Chair, ask an additional oral question arising directly out of the original question or the reply.

An answer to an oral question will take the form of either:

• A direct oral answer; or
• If the information required is not easily available a written answer will be sent to the questioner and circulated to all members of the Trust Board.

Unless the Chair decides otherwise there will not be discussion on any public question.

Further information

For further information, please contact the Corporate Governance Team on 0300 422 2932 or e-mail ghn-tr.corporategovernance@nhs.net