National Healthwatch Impact Award: Celebrating 10 years of Healthwatch

For this year’s awards, we’ll be considering any project that is making life better for local people that has been delivered in collaboration with other Healthwatch or other partners.

To showcase the difference Healthwatch has made for people in our communities, we’ve focused on one important award category. This year, the award reflects on an improvement to people's care that has resulted from your Healthwatch’s work at any point over the past ten years, and that still benefits people today.

You can submit your entry from 20 September.

We’ll also invite all shortlisted entries to share how they achieved change at the Healthwatch National Online Conference  from 11-12 March 2024.

What criteria do you need to address?

In no more than 500 words, please outline the difference your Healthwatch has made for people and communities. To gain maximum scores for your submission, you should address each of the criteria points below and stay within the word count for each section. The panel will not consider any information over the word count.

1. Summarise the main aims and outcomes of your piece of work.

 You should introduce your application with a summary of what the work was about and what you achieved.

Maximum word count: 30. This section is not scored.

2. Which service/s did your work relate to?

Give basic information about the area of work. 

Maximum word count: 20. This section is not scored.

3. What change was needed, and how did you identify this? 

We will score entries on: 

• A clear identification from your research/engagement work of what problem(s) existed. 

• How your wider understanding of services, and/or your connections helped you recognise the issue. 

Maximum word count: 100. This section is worth up to 10 points.

4. What did you do to achieve change? 

We will score entries on: 

• How your research/engagement activity considered people with different profiles who might have different experiences. 

• Steps you took to understand the experience of seldom heard groups. 

• How you involved people with real-life experience. 

• What conclusions you reached. 

• A succinct account of what you did to share and report your insight. 

• A considered and effective approach to influencing decision-makers. 

Maximum word count: 200. This section is worth up to 20 points.

5. How will people’s experiences of the service/s now be better, and why is that important? 

The first round of shortlisting will score entries on responses to this question alone.

We will score entries on a clear and compelling description of:

• The outcomes your Healthwatch has achieved for people’s direct experience of services.
• Awareness of reasonably anticipated wider impact on their lives. 

Maximum word count: 150. This section is worth up to 30 points.

6. Supporting evidence

Please share up to two pieces of evidence. One must be a video testimonial, which we will take into account when scoring your application. You can include details of indicators and testimonials that help confirm the improvements that you achieved. See the sections below for full details of what you need to provide.

We will score entries on how the information provided gives confidence that in 2023 people will be experiencing the changes that you have described.

Maximum overall score

A total of 60 points are available for an entry. 

Other important information

Your entry must not be a piece of work for which you previously received a Healthwatch award.

To be considered, your submission must be for work carried out in the past ten years, from the inception of Healthwatch, and that demonstrates achievements that are still benefiting people in 2023.

You should submit one entry per Healthwatch. However, you can also submit a joint entry for a piece of work done in collaboration with other Healthwatch (including ICS groupings) or with a local service partner. The same piece of work cannot be submitted twice as a joint or individual entry. Maximum two entries in total.

Successful entries must include details of the tangible change this work has created for local people over the past ten years. Your entry must demonstrate how your Healthwatch has improved health or care services alongside other stakeholders. 

The work must have been delivered under the Healthwatch brand and must be funded through core or commissioned work.

Healthwatch providers change, but often, staff and volunteers transfer to the new provider. Let us know if this is your situation, and we will take this into consideration – we want to celebrate what your team have been able to achieve. 

Supporting evidence

You can upload a maximum of two pieces of evidence as part of your overall submission. We will not accept any forms of evidence apart from those detailed below.

One piece of evidence must be a video testimony, maximum two minutes, from one or more local people or external representative/s who have witnessed the difference you've made (i.e. people with lived experience/people benefiting from the change, or a professional stakeholder). We won't be judging on the quality of the video – but rather the testimony itself.

Important information

Videos cannot be directly uploaded to the same webform as your entry. Instead, they must be shared by including a link on a Word document leading to where your video can be viewed, such as your YouTube page. The video must be no longer than two minutes maximum. For any queries on this, please contact the events team on annualconference@healthwatch.co.uk.

Your second piece of evidence could then be, on no more than one side of A4: 

•  Link/s to pages of external websites of other organisations. (Please add these to a Word document and identify which criteria point or section the link relates to). 
• Statement from your commissioner or a representative from an external service partner(s). 
• News article that can clearly highlight the difference you've made for local people.

If you include more than two pieces of evidence, only what we consider to be your first video and first A4 page will be considered with your entry.

Closing date for applications:

The closing date for all applications is Monday 6 November.

What happens next?

A panel made up of Healthwatch England representatives and Committee members will judge the awards based on a shortlist provided to them. Find out more about the Healthwatch England Committee. 

The shortlist will be drawn up by scoring applications based on how well they met the criteria set out above, along with the two pieces of evidence provided with each entry.

• All applicants, including shortlisted entries, will be notified of the outcome on Friday 19 January.
• All shortlisted entries will then be invited to deliver a short online live session on Monday 11 March, as part of the Healthwatch Awards Showcase Day. The day will be an opportunity for all network colleagues to attend sessions and hear from those shortlisted, and gain insight into the change being made across Healthwatch. By entering the awards, if you are shortlisted, you must be able to commit to present highlights of your entry as a short online session on Monday 11th March 2024. 

Award winners will be announced on Tuesday 12 March as part of the Healthwatch National Conference, being held online.

Further information on the National Online Conference & Awards will be announced in due course.

For any queries on the awards or evidence criteria, please email the team on: annualconference@healthwatch.co.uk