The district's health watchdogs are pioneering changes to patient empowerment.

Both Bradford and Airedale Community Health Councils (CHCs) have agreed to establish patient forums before parliament decides on the future of CHCs.

Under Government proposals, they could be replaced with forums and a Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health in March 2003.

But Bradford CHC chairman, Karl Dallas, said members were already establishing the system to ensure their legacy was passed on.

The executive and access to treatment committees have already been dissolved and a Patient Forum Liaison Committee formed.

"I'm extremely hopeful and excited about the future opportunities and hope that the CHCs strategy will ensure the baby will not be thrown out with the bathwater," he said.

"This ensures an efficient transfer to the new systems and that the work the CHC has been doing doesn't fall into a black hole. There's no template from the Government yet as to how they're going to work, so this gives us the opportunity to go forward with proposals and involve patients and the public as a whole."

CHCs were founded as independent bodies in 1974 and have helped thousands of patients unhappy with treatment in the NHS.

Chief officer of Airedale CHC, John Godward, said they would continue their statutory role, but that patient forums would be running in Airedale and Craven from April. "There's 27 years of work and experience in the CHC and we want to carry on that work in patient forums," he said.

Chief officer of Bradford CHC, Lesley Stirling Baxter said: "We have been recognised nationally as one of the best CHCs in the country and it's wonderful that members have wanted to share that legacy in forums to give patients the best treatment they could possibly have."