INDEPENDENT patient's watchdogs in Wales - Community Health Councils (CHC) - want proposals which will result in their abolition to be amended to preserve patients' and their representatives' right to hold health services directly to account.

Proposals for a new Citizens' Voice, issued by health secretary Vaughan Gething in June, will sweep away CHCs and their role of direct scrutiny of NHS services.

Consultation on the plans end today, but concerns have been raised, led by CHCs, that the new body will not be equipped to perform the key role of monitoring and holding to account the NHS that has gone before.

Aneurin Bevan CHC, which represents the interests of Gwent patients, is backing plans from the Board of Community Health Councils in Wales - based on a summer of consultation - that would see any new citizens' voice body having powers including the right to:

* Engage directly with individuals and communities on issues that matter most to them about health and care services;

* Scrutinise health and care policy, plans and performance locally, regionally and Wales-wide;

* Challenge service providers and policy makers if improvement is needed:

* Visit unannounced wherever health and care is delivered.

Aneurin Bevan CHC chief officer Angela Mutlow told Aneurin Bevan University Health Board members this week that a new organisation to strengthen patients' voice is to be welcomed, but must be truly independent.

That, she added, means "being able to hold the health board to account. It means being able to speak to patients in their beds."

Sue Campbell and Nigel Burge - former CHC members, both of whom have chaired the Monmouthshire area committee of Aneurin Bevan CHC in recent years - told the Argus that abolishing CHCs is a bad idea.

Citing concerns about systems in England and Scotland that have replaced CHCs, Mrs Campbell called the idea "farcical."

"Why try to mend something that is not broken? CHCs have done sterling work for more than 40 years," she said.

"People trust CHCs because they are independent."

Mr Burge stressed that CHCs "work with hospitals and other services, not against them."

"They don't go in simply to criticise, but to support and encourage a better patient experience," he said.

Mutale Merrill, who chairs the Board of CHCs in Wales, has written to party leaders stressing the importance of a new body "being created with partners and with those it seeks to represent."