Healthwatch - West Northamptonshire

Healthwatch West Northamptonshire is the local independent consumer champion for health and social care. They provide information and advice about health and social care services. Their central role is to be a voice for local people to influence better health and wellbeing and improve the quality of services to meet people’s needs. They will report findings to health and social care decision makers to improve and influence the quality of care.

Healthwatch rights and responsibilities include:

• The power to monitor (known as “Enter and View”) health and social care services (with one or two exceptions). The primary purpose is to find out what patients, service users, carers and the wider public think of health and social care.
• Report findings of local views and experiences to health and social care decision makers and make the case for improved services
• Be a strong and powerful voice for local people, to influence how services are planned, organised and delivered.
• Be an effective voice rooted in the community. Healthwatch find out what local people think about health and social care. They research patient, user and carer opinions using lots of different ways of finding out views and experiences.
• The option to escalate concerns and report evidence to national organisations including Healthwatch England, NHS England and the Care Quality Commission.