Local HealthWatch

A West Sussex County Council (WSCC) commissioning sub-group has been set up to draw up a service specification for the delivery of the local HealthWatch and the process for procuring the service. It is expected the service will be procured in the latter part of 2012.

The local HealthWatch project group, established by the Council to determine commissioning options, chaired by Councillor Peter Catchpole, is still continuing its work and its first meeting for 2012 was on Tuesday 24 January. The project group has involvement from WSCC, NHS West Sussex and the West Sussex LINk.

Consultation and engagement

The Phase 2 report on the Healthwatch consultation is now available to download from this page. Please see supporting documents.

HealthWatch update

The Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley announced milestones and interim funding arrangement for the HealthWatch programme.

• new start date for Local HealthWatch;
• funding being made available for the HealthWatch pathfinders; and
• new funding of £3.2m for start up costs for Local HealthWatch.

A new start date for Local HealthWatch in April 2013

The Health and Social Care Bill, under which local HealthWatch will take over from local involvemment networks in April 2013 has been agreed by parliament.

The new date for establishing Local HealthWatch in April 2013 will support the need to align this closer to the establishment of other new bodies such as the Health and Wellbeing Boards. The extension will also support preparations for implementation and enable HealthWatch England (which will be established in October 2012) to provide the leadership and support to Local HealthWatch organisations.

Funding made available for the HealthWatch pathfinders in the fourth quarter of 2011-2012

The funding being made available to each of the 75 HealthWatch pathfinders is in response to stakeholders seeking resources from the Department of Health to support them in delivering their work. Whilst how this will be spent is for each pathfinder to agree with their delivery partners, there are 5 areas where value for money could be sought:

• demonstrate testing elements of proposed HealthWatch functions;
• stakeholder events to involve local people;
• develop wider community engagement;
• rewarding and reimbursing volunteers (particularly from LINks) for their
  contribution; and
• contributing to their regional network to accelerate shared learning.

The funding for the pathfinders will be allocated through the Local Government Formula Grant route and we will be in contact with each pathfinder local authority to make them aware of this.

In addition to this, the Department of Health will be funding expertise from the sector to draw together and share the learning and it will be important for the HealthWatch pathfinders to support this work to gather the information from them so to inform planning for the implementation stage in 2012-13.

New funding of £3.2m for Local HealthWatch in 2012-13

The new funding of £3.2m that will be made available in 2012-13 is for start up costs in setting up Local HealthWatch and includes costs such as staff recruitment and training, office set up costs, and branding. The funding will be allocated as part of the Department of Health Learning Disabilities and Health Reform grant in 2012-13.

Under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, local authorities will need to continue to provide a Local Involvement Network (LINk) and funding for this continues to be allocated as part of the local government formula grant in 2012/13 and the £3.2m will be in addition to this.

The Department of Health will provide further advice for planning purposes about funding for Local HealthWatch in 2013-14, as part of the Local Government allocations notifications at the end of 2012.

Health Advisory Group newsletter

The third newsletter issued by the HealthWatch Advisory Group is now available (see supporting documents). 

Supporting documents

• Local HealthWatch: A strong voice for people - the policy explained (PDF, 22 pages, 568KB)
• Preparing for HealthWatch - CQC's plan to set up HealthWatch England
  (PDF, 12 pages, 531KB)
• Phase 2 HealthWatch consultation and engagement report
  (PDF, 8 pages, 71KB)
• Shaping HealthWatch report (PDF, 16 pages, 2MB)
• News from the HealthWatch Advisory Group - Bulletin 3
  (PDF, 13 pages, 747KB) 
• Local HealthWatch questions and answers (PDF, 2 pages, 19KB)
• Theme analysis (PDF, 3 pages, 87KB)
• West Sussex Survey summary (PDF, 7 pages, 202KB)

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