Commentary on Sections Governance and management Section 153 – Members
1003.This section requires a foundation trust to take steps to ensure that the membership of any public and patient constituencies is representative of those eligible to be members. Under sections elsewhere in the Act, Monitor will lose the power to ensure this through terms of authorisation. Paragraph 3(1)(a) of Schedule 7 to the NHS Act defines a public constituency as comprising “individuals who live in any area specified in the constitution as the area for a public constituency” while paragraph 3(1)(c) of that Schedule provides that the patient constituency includes “individuals who have attended any of the corporation’s hospitals either as a patient or the carer of a patient within a period specified in the constitution”. Having specific patient constituencies for members is optional for foundation trusts.
1004.Subsection (2) requires a foundation trust to have regard to the population it serves in deciding on the geographic areas eligible for its public constituency and any patient constituency. For example, if a foundation trust serves patients from a wide area – if for instance it is a regional centre of expertise or a tertiary referral centre – the effect would be to require the trust to give consideration to creating a separate patient constituency if it decided against including the whole area in its public constituency.