It is good practice for all local Healthwatch to have clear agreements about roles, responsibilities and decision-making.

You told us you wanted more support for Healthwatch boards.  Margaret Curtis and Phil Morgan, the two consultants from local Healthwatch who led the board support programme in 2022-23, have produced these checklists and templates that will help you in your role as a Healthwatch Chair or board member, in both hosted and standalone Healthwatch.

You will find all of the resources you need below, so that board support is all available on one easy to use page.

These existing resources will also be fundamental for Chairs and board members.

Decision-making template and guidance

How we make decisions (Easy Read)

Code of conduct template and guidance

Conflict of interest template and guidance

Guide to running a Healthwatch

It's a legal requirement for your local Healthwatch to produce an annual report by the end of June. To help you do this, use our template, which is available in PowerPoint and InDesign formats on the Communications Centre (Brandstencil).

The template includes a branded design, as well as guidance on how to complete your report, what to change and what you need to include in your report.

Please note you will need to be logged in to see the resources on The Communications Centre. There is one account per local Healthwatch, however if you are having problems accessing your account please email hub@healthwatch.co.uk

Visit Communications Centre 

Images

It's great if you can personalise the report with local photography. However, we've also added a new album on our Flickr library, with images that you can use throughout your report.

These images are all selected to fit with the new visual brand guidelines. 

View Flickr album 

Who to send your annual report to

Once you have published your annual report, you need to send it to:

• Healthwatch England (use the web form below)
• Care Quality Commission
• NHS England - by emailing England.healthwatchannualreport@nhs.net 
• Senior Integrated Care System leaders for your area
• The Overview and Scrutiny Committee of your local authority
• The local authority that commissions your service 

Deadline

The deadline for submitting your annual report is Friday 30 June 2023.

If you have any problems or concerns meeting this deadline, please speak to your regional manager as soon as possible. 

How do I submit my report?

To submit your report, you need to upload your finished document through the web form linked below

Upload your report here

English local authorities have a legal duty to commission local Healthwatch.  Healthwatch England has a role to play in supporting local authorities with this function to make sure they understand their duty and learn from good practice.  We do this through publishing a guide for commissioners and through individual support to them.

We have launched an update to our guide, following the enactment of the Health and Care Act 2022, and to reflect local authorities’ key learnings from their experience of over a decade of commissioning local Healthwatch.

About the commissioners' guide 

The guide: 

• explains the key statutory requirements relating to Healthwatch;
• outlines local authorities' role in commissioning local Healthwatch for their area;
• explains Healthwatch England’s role and how this relates to both local authorities and local Healthwatch;
• sets out how commissioners can use the Healthwatch Quality Framework to commission and monitor local Healthwatch;
• identifies ways that commissioners can set clear expectations on outcomes and impact to ensure their Healthwatch is effective;
• provides a checklist to support local authorities when developing a tender specification, contract or grant agreement.

Download the guide

Mystery shopping has many uses. It allows the researcher to experience the service from the view of a service user and can be used to assess various aspects of a service, such as accessibility, customer service or overall quality.

This guide will help you through the process of carrying out a mystery shopping exercise. Topics covered in this guide include:  

• What is mystery shopping? 

• Types of mystery shopping 

• When should you consider mystery shopping? 

• Planning a mystery shopping exercise 

• Running a mystery shopping exercise 

• Ethical considerations 

Before you start, think about whether you need to collect people’s names and contact details. If you don’t, then GDPR doesn't apply, and you don’t need to have a consent question for personal data in your survey or feedback form. 

This document includes examples of how to word intriductions and questions about consent and explicit consent in:

• Surveys
• Webforms
• Interviews and focus groups

If you have any questions about this guidance or the examples, please contact the research team: research@healthwatch.co.uk. 

We rely on local Healthwatch insight to understand trends in how people experience health and social care services. It is also a legal requirement for Healthwatch to share their data with Healthwatch England.

Formalising data sharing 

As part of our work to strengthen our data standards, all Healthwatch are required to sign a data sharing agreement. 

This has been developed on the advice of data protection experts and in line with guidance from the Information Commissioners Office, for any system or process involving data sharing between Healthwatch and Healthwatch England. The agreement sets out our roles and standards of what is expected from the arrangement and each party, with a schedule for each system.

About this resource

To help you plan your communications, we have created a calendar that provides you with:

• Key network communication dates
• Campaigns that will provide you an opportunity to communicate your work
• Other communication opportunities
• Religious dates you might want to mark

This calendar has two separate tabs, including:

1. A full year calendar view so you can see what's coming up at a glance.
2. A list of where you can go for more information about specific campaigns.

We are here to support those affected by the withdrawal of CiviCRM find alternative solutions. 

For Healthwatch wishing to continue using CiviCRM, you may want to contract directly with a provider suh as Circle Interactive for services including hosting and maintainence. 

Here you can find their standard terms and conditions.

About this resource

The rising cost of living is an increasing issue. To help you gather feedback in this area and understand issues at a local level we have produced:

• A template survey that can be used as it is, or you can adapt it to suit your local needs when finding out people's experiences.
• Guidance that will help give you ideas on how to broach cost of living issues in general engagement, help you take your findings forward with commissioners and learn how and why to share your findings with us. 

Collecting, storing and analysing data can be achieved using a CRM/database like Charity Log or Salesforce. Some Healthwatch have fed back that these solutions are not affordable.

This guidance looks at the pros and cons of data capture using a form or survey tool (Smart Survey), data storage using Excel and briefly touches on data analysis using Excel or Microsoft Power Bi – either the free or subscription service.

There is a step by step guide to setting up Microsoft Forms plus links to the templates for both Microsoft Forms and Smart Survey – both of which you can amend to meet the requirements of your Healthwatch. The templates are based on the Healthwatch taxonomy and there is a commentary on how this applies to the questions in the templates.