News

4 Key Questions

1. What is HealthWatch?

HealthWatch is the new initiative set out by the government to tackle inequalities within the NHS. They will provide patients and public with a voice to air their views, suggestions and concerns to governing and commissioning bodies.

2. What is the difference between HealthWatch and LINk’s

HealthWatch is an expansion of LINk’s (now being described as LINks+) which will become Local HealthWatch. Local HealthWatch will just about have all the powers that LINk’s have but will also include:

• New funding and functions to provide a complaints advocacy service. As well as supporting individuals exercising their choice, in particular people that lack the means or capacity to make choices.
• Be able to report concerns about quality of health to HealthWatch England, independent of the local authority, with the basis that HealthWatch England can recommend the Care Quality Commission take action.
• A Local HealthWatch member will sit on the Health and Wellbeing boards (which are set up within each local authority area).

3. What does it mean to me?

Existing volunteers, members of the public, will still have the same input that they have been able to have with LINk, but they will in future go to HealthWatch for complaints and support in exercising their choice of health and social care.

4. Why Change?

The government has recognised through public involvement with LINk’s how much impact they have had and wish to give the patients and public, a bigger responsibility in choosing what services are commissioned and how they should receive their health and social care.

LINks and HealthWatch advisory bodies take shape:

www.pals.nhs.uk

Processes are underway to implement the government’s plans to establish HealthWatch England as a sub-committee of the Care Quality Commission (CQC). In parallel with this, work is under way to ‘evolve’ LINks into local HealthWatch bodies which will have the power to report local concerns to the national body for possible

investigation. The 3 key differences between the current LINk arrangements and

the HealthWatch proposals are:

• shift from participation to influencing the outcome of health and social care services;
• local voice to national influence;  new functions adding individual to the collective.