Our statutory duties

Report - 5 January 2014

Local Healthwatch have been set up in every local authority area in England by the Health and Social Care Act 2012. This sets out the statutory duties of each Healthwatch, which you can read more about here.

Our statutory duties

1. Promoting and supporting the involvement of local people in the commissioning, provision and scrutiny of local care services.

2. Enabling local people to monitor the standard of provision of local care services and whether and how local care services could and ought to be improved.

3. Obtaining the views of local people regarding their needs for, and experiences of, local care services and importantly to make these views known.

4. Making reports and recommendations about how local care services could or ought to be improved. These should be directed to commissioners and providers of care services, and people responsible for managing or scrutinising local care services, and shared with Healthwatch England.

5. Providing advice and information about access to local care services so choices can be made about local care services.

6. Formulating views on the standard of provision and whether and how the local care services could and ought to be improved, and to share these views with Healthwatch England.

7. Making recommendations to Healthwatch England to advise the Care Quality Commission to conduct special reviews or investigations (or, where the circumstances justify doing so, making such recommendations direct to the CQC); and to make recommendations to Healthwatch England to publish reports about particular issues.

8. Providing Healthwatch England with intelligence and insight to enable it to perform effectively.

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