Process for submitting questions to meetings of the Board of Directors

Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust welcomes feedback and members of the public may ask the Board a question on any matter which is within the powers and duties of the Trust.

The Trust holds a Board meeting in public once every other month in Leeds.  Details of future meetings, together with the agendas and minutes from previous meetings can be found on our website.

The 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. Nevertheless, the Chair is happy to conduct a short question session at the start of each board meeting held in public to respond to questions which have been submitted in writing in advance of the meeting.

Process for submitting questions:

Questions must be submitted in writing at least eight clear working days before the Board meeting to the Trust Secretary by emailing lypft.ftmembership@nhs.net.

Each question must give the name of the questioner and if the question is being asked on behalf of an organisation then the name of the organisation must be stated. No more than two questions may be submitted by any person at any meeting to allow the Trust to deal with a fair cross section of questions.

The Chair will determine who is best placed to respond and how the response should be provided. Copies of the questions and the responses will be recorded in the minutes from the meeting.

Subject matter for questions:

We ask that you submit questions rather than statements to allow the maximum number of questions and to allow for responses.

Questions may be rejected when the Chair considers that they:

• are not on any matter that is within the powers and duties of the Trust
• are substantially the same as a question that has previously been answered at a meeting of the Trust Board or Council of Governors or by the Trust through another process such as a Freedom of Information request or the NHS complaints process
• would require the disclosure of confidential or exempt information
• is an issue about an individual’s patient care (where appropriate the patient will be redirected to the Trust’s PALS Team or Complaints Team)
• names, or clearly identifies, a member of staff, patient or any other individual (where appropriate the patient will be redirected to the Trust’s PALS Team or Complaints Team)
• are defamatory, frivolous or offensive.

How questions will be answered in the Board meeting:

The Chair will announce the start of the question session, which will take place at the start of the Board meeting.  If the person who has submitted the question is present, they will be invited to read out their question, with the appropriate director then providing a response. If the questioner is not present the Chair will read out the question.

Every effort will be made to include and answer as many public questions as possible at each meeting, however time dedicated to answering questions will need to be balanced with the time needed for considering all items on the meeting agenda. Priority will be given to those questions that are relevant to the items on the agenda. All questions that are not addressed in the Board meeting will be followed up with a written response.