The future of patient voice: learning from the Healthwatch model
The King's Fund have published their new report: "The future of patient voice: Learning from the Healthwatch model."
The review was commissioned jointly by The King's Fund and Healthwatch England, but was developed and written independently by The King’s Fund.
It follows the Government's decision to abolish Healthwatch at a local and national level, subject to legislation.
Key findings
The review highlights significant strengths of the Healthwatch model, including:
- The importance of independence from government and local services, which has enabled Healthwatch to build trust in communities and offer impartial advice
- The ability to gather rich insight, including from individuals and groups who might not share their feedback otherwise
- A local to national model that connects community voice to system influence
It also highlights some of the challenges that Healthwatch have faced since our beginning in 2013 - largely linked to commissioning and funding leaving organisations poorly resourced compared to other parts of the system.
What next?
The review sets out principles that any future model should build on. These emphasise the positive ways in which Healthwatch currently work, and which must continue to support patient and public voice.
"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"
