Healthwatch National Conference and Impact Awards 2024

National Conference 2024 

This year the National Conference is being held on Tuesday 12 November at the QEII Centre in central London. Register today to secure your place for a day of opportunities to hear from key speakers from the health and care sector and the chance to network, share and learn from your Healthwatch peers. 

For full details about the conference and to secure your place

Register now

Healthwatch Impact Awards 2024 

Are you proud of something you’ve achieved in the past year? For this year’s awards, we’ll be considering any project which has made life better for local people, that has been delivered individually, or in collaboration with other Healthwatch, or with other partners. The work should either have been undertaken between September 2023 and September 2024, or undertaken before that, but the improvements it has led to have been implemented between these dates. 

Awards entry is now open and the closing date is Friday 11 October.

We’ll also invite all shortlisted entries to share how they achieved change at the Healthwatch Impact Showcase Day on Thursday 13 March 2025.

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 which we will take into account when scoring your application. You can include details of indicators and testimonials (written) 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 between September 2023 and September 2024 the outcomes you have described have happened and that these will be leading to people’s experience of services improving.

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 that demonstrates outcomes between Sept 2023 – Sept 2024, and that demonstrates achievements that are still benefiting people.
• 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 (inc ICS groupings). 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 between the dates specified. Your entry must demonstrate how your Healthwatch has improved health or care services. Remember that the first round of shortlisting will only involve scoring entries on Question 5, ‘How will people’s experiences of the service/s be better and why is that important?’ Entries that move past that stage will then be scored on all questions.
• The panel recognise that the work you are describing could have contributed to improvements in a range of ways: improving a service's design, delivery, or quality; involving people in co-creation; reducing risks to patients; improving public information and communication; increasing the priority given to an issue by helping the system reflect on its true impact on people's lives; influencing strategy, planning, decision-making or commissioning of services. However, for your entry to be successful it’s still essential that you consider the point above and describe more specifically why what you achieved will result in people’s experience of services being better and what that improvement will be.
• 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 has 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.

Important information

Your evidence could be as follows, 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). 
• Statements 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.

Please note: this year, video evidence is not required and will not be taken into account as part of your evidence. 

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

Closing date for applications:

The closing date for all applications is Friday 11 October.

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 17 January.
• All shortlisted entries will then be invited to deliver a short online live session on Thursday 13 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 Thursday 13 March 2025. 

Award winners will be announced on Thursday 13 March as part of the Impact Showcase Day, being held online.

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