The future of patient voice: Learning from the Healthwatch model

The King's Fund, an independent health research and policy organisation, has just published a report looking at how local Healthwatch have worked with their residents and decision-makers in the NHS and local government. Healthwatch Southend was pleased to be invited to take part in the research.

It comes at a time when we expect the Government to publish a Bill which will abolish Healthwatch Southend and the 150 other local services. It will propose that NHS integrated care boards (which plan and fund most NHS services) take on our functions for collecting patient feedback, whilst councils will collect the experiences of those using social care services.

Two key messages from the King's Fund are

Whatever replaces Healthwatch must build on the core conditions that enabled it to have a positive impact: a voice independent of government and services; the capacity to gather unsolicited, varied and rich community insight, including from seldom heard groups; and a geographical scale that supports both local insight and system or national-level influence.

Any future model must enhance – not weaken – the system’s capacity to hear, understand and respond to people’s experiences. It needs to maintain a level of independence from the health and care system to ensure that whatever is put in place can speak truth to power and raise difficult messages where necessary.

Healthwatch Southend welcomes the recognition that people must have access to an independent body, rooted in their community, to collect and act on their feedback.

Read the report here