Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how they will secure independent evidence on the needs and experiences of health and social care users following the abolition of Healthwatch.

As set out in the Dash Report and the 10-Year Health Plan for England, the strategic functions of Healthwatch England will transfer to a new directorate for patient experience within the Department.

We are committed to ensuring that patient voice is not only heard but embedded at the highest levels of our leadership and decision-making structures. By creating clear routes for patient insight, feedback, and lived experience to directly influence senior leaders at the national level, we will ensure that policies, strategic priorities, and service design will be shaped by what matters most to the people who use health services.

To achieve this, we are proposing to abolish Healthwatch and bring patient voice ‘in-house’ by creating a new Patient Experience Directorate in the Department, which will take on the strategic functions of Healthwatch England. The health function of Local Healthwatch (LHW) will become the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs). ICBs will ensure the functions are incorporated in provider organisations alongside existing patient engagement work such as Patient Participation Groups. Local authorities will be responsible for the social care functions of LHW.

The abolition of both Healthwatch England and Local Healthwatch will require primary legislation and will be subject to the will of Parliament.