Healthwatch Wokingham Borough

The Healthwatch Wokingham service will be the local independent consumer champion for health and social care to enable people of all ages and from all backgrounds to enjoy high quality health and care and to understand their health and care choices. Healthwatch covers all types of health and social care services.

The organisation providing this service must be an independent social enterprise (e.g. community interest company, acting for the benefit of the community) and the service must be inclusive and accessible to all across Wokingham Borough.

The key activities of the service are to

• Promote and support the involvement of local people in the commissioning, provision and scrutiny of local health and care services.
• Enable local people to monitor the standard of provision of local health and care services and whether and how local care services could and ought to be improved.
• Obtain the views of local people regarding their needs for, and experiences of, local health and care services and, importantly, supporting people to make these views known.
• Make reports and recommendations about how local health and care services could or ought to be improved.
• Provide advice and information about access to local health and care services so choices can be made about local care services
• Formulate views on the standard of provision and whether and how local health and care services could and ought to be improved; and sharing these views with Healthwatch England
• Make recommendations to Healthwatch England to advise the Care Quality Commission to conduct special reviews or investigations, and making recommendations to Healthwatch England to publish reports about particular issues
• Provide Healthwatch England with the intelligence and insight it needs to enable it to perform effectively