Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure that the views of (a) patients and (b) the public continue to be heard when the responsibilities of Healthwatch are moved to Integrated Care Boards.

The Department has accepted the recommendation of the Dash review of patient safety across the health and care landscape, to abolish Local Healthwatch.

In future, integrated care boards will be responsible for seeking patient, user and wider community input for health along with their existing duties of patient involvement, and local authorities for social care, where it can feed directly into overall strategic planning and be more closely aligned with the commissioning and provision of care.

The Dash review recommends that the strategic functions of Healthwatch England are transferred into a new patient experience directorate of the Department.

The abolition of Healthwatch England and the transfer of its functions and the changes to Local Healthwatch will require primary legislation. Timing of this is subject to the will of parliament and will happen when parliamentary time allows.