The year ahead
About
In 2023, we published our strategy, which sets out the difference we want to make by 2026 and how we intend to achieve it in partnership with local Healthwatch. We also published a two-year business plan explaining our intended steps to help deliver our strategy.
However, we have now reviewed and updated our business plan following the Government announcement in July 2025 that the functions of Healthwatch England would be transferred to the Department of Health and Social Care once Parliament has passed new legislation.
The Government also said that the same legislation would transfer the functions of local Healthwatch to the NHS and local councils.
While Healthwatch England exists, we will continue to carry out our statutory role and deliver our aims. However, we have paused work which is unlikely to have any near-term impact or benefit.
Our strategy in brief
Vision: To bring closer the day when everyone gets the care they need.
Mission: To make sure that people's experiences help make health and care better.
Values:
- Equity: We're compassionate and inclusive. We build strong connections and empower the communities we serve.
- Collaboration: We build internal and external relationships, communicate clearly, and work with partners to amplify our influence.
- Impact: We're ambitious about creating change for people and communities. We're accountable to those we serve and hold others to account.
- Independence: Our agenda is driven by the public. We're a purposeful, critical friend to decision-makers.
- Truth: We work with integrity and honesty and speak truth to power.
Aims:
- To support more people facing the worst outcomes, speak up about their health and social care, and access the advice they need.
- To support care decision-makers to act on public feedback and involve communities in decisions that affect them.
- To be a more effective organisation and build a stronger Healthwatch movement.
Our updated plans
Until March 2026, we will focus our activities on the following areas:
1. Supporting the public to feedback on care
We will:
- Encourage people to speak up about their care, especially those facing inequalities.
- Ensure that our advice and communications are accessible to the communities we serve.
2. Supporting professionals to improve health and care services
We will:
- Highlight the issues that currently concern people, especially those facing inequalities, and make recommendations that help improve care.
- Publish a comprehensive review of our evidence to bring to light the public's perspective on the state of health and social care.
- Work in partnership with national decision-makers to ensure that the feedback people share with us is used to help improve health and care.
3. Maintaining an effective organisation and movement
We will:
- Deliver a learning and development programme to maintain the core skills of national and local staff and volunteers.
- Maintain our digital infrastructure and support for local Healthwatch services.
- Work with local Healthwatch and national and local Government to help sustain the current network of local Healthwatch services.
- Report our activities and impact to Parliament, and will support local Healthwatch to report on their activities at the local level.
- Provide advice to the Government on how to build on the work of Healthwatch and transition our functions into the Department of Health and Social Care.
- Maintain our policies and systems to ensure the highest finance and governance standards.
