Welcome to our page for all things HealthWatch. On this page you can find out more about HealthWatch and access links to our collection of useful documents and news items. Please note that all information is subject to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 which is still progressing through parliament and may be subject to change.

 

Summary: HealthWatch is to be the new consumer champion for health and social care services that will replace Local Involvement Networks in 2012. The Suffolk LINk will cease to exist and will be replaced by Suffolk Local HealthWatch (LHW). Suffolk County Council will be the funders of Suffolk Local HealthWatch but will also be scrutinised by HealthWatch in relation to their care services, which presents an interesting conflict that will require careful consideration. Local HealthWatch organisations will feed nationally into a new body called HealthWatch England (HWE), which will feed into the Care Quality Commission (CQC). HWE will provide leadership, support and advice for Local HealthWatch organisations as they are set up across the country. Please see below for more information about HealthWatch, the advisory bodies and some of the key differences between LINks and HealthWatch.

HealthWatch is the new consumer champion for health and social care services that will replace Local Involvement Networks in 2012. Locally, the Suffolk LINk will cease to exist and will be replaced by Suffolk Local HealthWatch (LHW). LHW will provide people with a single point of contact from which they may raise issues of concern about services, influence the commissioning of health and social care services, get information to choose care services and access advocacy to deal with their individual NHS health care service complaints. HealthWatch will have greater power to be able to genuinely influence decision making about the way in which health and social care services are provided.

 

It is expected that Local HealthWatch will be an accessible, independent and inclusive local champion for people.  It will be democratic, well known to patients, users, carers and members of the public in its area. It is envisioned that Local HealthWatch will work in partnership with local service commissioners and providers of heath, public health and social care services to

The Government has termed the transition year ahead as an evolution as opposed to outright abolition and it has been expressed that LINks should be a cornerstone in the development of HealthWatch. Some people have questioned the extent to which this may be taking place nationally as expressed in a National Association of LINk Members (NALM) publication that can be downloaded from here.

 

 

The Department of Health has recognised that these are a very complex set of relationships that require careful management. As noted above the main challenge that Local Authorities face is related to the conflict between Local Authorities as a commissioner of HealthWatch and Local Authorities as a provider of adult social care services which LHW organisations will be tasked with scrutinising. Local Authorities have been asked to begin to think about how this conflict may be handled locally.

 

 

Local HealthWatch organisations will feed nationally into an entirely new body called HealthWatch England, which is to be constituted as a committee of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) – the regulator for health and social care services in England. HealthWatch England will provide leadership, support and advice for Local HealthWatch organisations and in so doing will help to generate greater consistency across the country. HWE will also be able to advise the Secretary of State for Health, the NHS Commissioning Board, English Local Authorities and Monitor as well as the CQC about concerns raised by Local HealthWatch organisations and will be able to request that the CQC carries out investigations if it has evidence of poorly performing services.

 

It is hoped that, with the powers as highlighted above, HWE will have real influence over the way in which health and social care services are run in England.

 

 

It is envisioned that Local HealthWatch will build upon current LINk duties and rights such as the right to enter and view services plus have roles around the following main functions:

 

Influencing and decision making: Similarly to LINks; HealthWatch will continue to have a role around influencing local health and social care services but will have an increased role in shaping decision making by acting as a strong, independent consumer voice on the new Health and Wellbeing Board in Suffolk and elsewhere.

 

Signposting: HealthWatch will have a role around providing information to help people to make choices about their care, particularly those people who lack the capacity to do so themselves.

 

Advisory: HealthWatch, from 2013, will provide advocacy and support for individuals making complaints about NHS health care services.

 

Some of you may be aware of the following advisory bodies that have been created to enable the progression of the HealthWatch programme.

Initiated in February 2011; the programme board has been established to develop the necessary work, which HealthWatch England (HWE) and the CQC can take forward when the HWE committee has been established by law. The programme board will ensure stakeholder involvement in the development of HealthWatch and readiness for both HWE and Local HW. The board will provide guidance in how best to deliver the HW programme although the work programme in itself is the responsibility of the Department of Health.

  

Established by the programme board; the advisory group has been established “to work together as a group of experts to advise the HealthWatch programme board and keep up the momentum and focus on the implementation of the programme”. The advisory group will be an influential source of expertise.

 

One of the main purposes of the advisory group is to ensure stakeholder involvement from LINks and other relevant bodies and as such it is comprised of regional LINk representatives, NALM representatives, CQC representatives, Department of Health representatives and representatives of other stakeholders such as Carers UK.