Healthwatch

Cheshire West & Chester Council and Cheshire East Council are reviewing its current jointly commissioned Healthwatch Cheshire service and NHS Independent Complaints Advocacy Services (ICAS) which has a contract end date of 31 March 2026. Accordingly, we would like to hear from the market as an initial step to help improve our market knowledge and to gauge the appetite of providers for delivering such services going forward.

Any useful information you can provide will be appreciated and treated in confidence. We are seeking initial feedback from organisations who are interested in delivering the Healthwatch Cheshire service across Cheshire West & Chester and Cheshire East Councils. We have attached a questionnaire for completion.

Interested organisations are therefore invited to complete the attached questionnaire by no later than midday 9 May 2025. Information about Healthwatch Cheshire: The national vision for local Healthwatch is that it will be the independent consumer voice for health and social care.

It will benefit the population including members of the public, carers, patients, service user by helping people to get the best out of health and social care services, helping services to be more responsive to what people need and want, and improving outcomes.

The local vision for the service is that it will build and have a reputation for being a visible, robust, and credible player in the local health and social care economy by demonstrating that it has the appropriate level of skills, experience and competencies required to deliver its statutory functions to the highest possible level.

Healthwatch Cheshire will gain the trust of the general public as well as other health and social care stakeholder groups by being responsive and acting on positive and negative feedback, making sure local voices are heard. The primary purpose of the Healthwatch Cheshire service is to act as an independent champion and voice for residents to help monitor and shape local health and social care services.

This is achieved by actively gathering the opinions and experiences of local people in using these services and producing valuable and timely feedback for the NHS and local authority service commissioners. The information would then be used to influence the delivery and design of local health and social care services. Local authorities also have a duty to commission an Independent Complaints Advocacy service (ICAS).

This service will be delivered as part of the recommission of Healthwatch Cheshire.

The delivery and purpose of the Independent Complaints Advocacy Service (ICAS) which will be delivered and provided across the local authority geographical areas of Cheshire West and Chester and Cheshire East - is to provide help and support to individuals to understand their rights and to make an informed decision, to access information and independent advocacy and understand what their options are if they need help to complain about NHS services.

The service will support residents with a complaint or grievance related to any aspect of healthcare as described in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. This includes that which falls under the jurisdiction of the Health Service Ombudsman, such as complaints about poor treatment or service provided through the NHS in England supporting the individual through the NHS Complaints process to ensure they get the best possible resolution.

Healthwatch England and local Healthwatch organisations work together, sharing expertise, information, and learning to improve health and social care services. A local Healthwatch has legal powers which are clearly set out and described by Healthwatch England. These include and annual report, enter and view powers, representation at the local Health and Wellbeing Board and overview and scrutiny of services.