Health services

Tender description

Local authorities are required to commission a local Healthwatch organisation under the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Healthwatch acts as a consumer champion for users of health and social care services, making sure that people know where to go to raise concerns about health and social care services, people’s views and experiences are heard, improving scrutiny of health and social care services and helping local people to influence commissioning decisions. Healthwatch is a key part of the local health and social care landscape, it has a statutory place on the health and wellbeing board where it can share evidence and feedback on what people think about their health and social care services to system leaders to ensure that services meet the needs of and are shaped by local communities. It can also enter and view services such as care homes and hospitals observe what is happening and report back to commissioners. Healthwatch have a number of responsibilities, a key part of which is to carry out “Enter and View” visits at publicly funded health and social care premises to see and hear first-hand experiences about the service. Enter and View visits are conducted by a small team of trained volunteers/staff, who are prepared as “Authorised Representatives” to conduct visits to health and social care premises. Enter and View is the opportunity for the local Healthwatch to: Enter and View is the opportunity for the local Healthwatch to: — observe how the service is delivered, often by using a themed approach — collect the views of service users (patients and residents) at the point of service delivery — Collect the views of carers and relatives through evidence based feedback by observing the nature and quality of services — report to providers, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), Local Authorities, Commissioners, Healthwatch England and other relevant partners — enter and View visits are carried out as ‘announced visits’ where arrangements are made with the service provider, or, if certain circumstances dictate, as “unannounced” visits, — enter and View visits can happen if people raise a problem with a service but, equally, they can occur when services have a good reputation – so we can learn about and share examples of what a service does well. Other key responsibilities of Healthwatch’s role include the following: — contribute to Joint Strategic Needs Assessments, Market Position Statement and joint health and wellbeing strategies (including those priorities that target adults, children and young people) – on which local commissioning decisions will be based – through its seat and full participation on the Health and Well-Being Board, — produce evidence of engagement and input from public, local voluntary and community groups in developing work programmes and priorities, — produce reports and make recommendations which lead to key strategies, the shaping of services and service improvements based on evidence collected from consultations, enter and views requests for information and analysing data, — coordinate activity to ensure a Healthwatch representative is present at Health and social care meetings and events concerning health and social care issues and contribute, constructively and effectively, — recruitment and produce a training programme to develop a team of skilled enter and view representatives that are equipped to carry out thorough enter and views and write evidence based reports, — regular sharing of data with commissioners with evidence of when recommendations have contributed to shared outcomes. — protocol in place to share information with Healthwatch England, — regular meetings held with BHR Healthwatch, including an annual public meeting to bring together Healthwatch, partners and the public. The contract may at the Council's discretion be extended for a further period of up to 2 years (i.e to 31 03 2026)