Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to ensure future systems replacing Healthwatch be required to show how public feedback has influenced decisions.

The Health Bill places responsibility for listening to patients and the public with the organisations that plan and deliver services, namely integrated care boards (ICBs) for healthcare and local authorities for social care.

ICBs will be required to publish an annual statement on how they have gathered feedback and what actions they have taken as a result of that feedback. We anticipate this will be included in ICBs’ annual reports.

Unlike ICBs, local authorities are not required to produce an annual report. In order not to place additional burdens on local authorities, the requirement will be for local authorities to provide information on how they have engaged with local people if requested by my Rt. Hon Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. As part of their regulatory function, the Care Quality Commission will assess whether local authorities are meeting this duty, as part of their wider assessments of local authorities’ delivery of their duties under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014.

At the national level, we are also bringing patient voice into the Department through a new Patient Experience Directorate, where it can drive real change and directly inform national policymaking.