Demise of Healthwatch England will do NHS patients a disservice
The disillusionment of thousands of patients and service users who gave their time and effort to the new system was palpable, so much so that few felt able to participate in the subsequent ill-fated LINks community engagement system, which never got off the ground.
It was left to the Conservative government to address the absence of users' voices in health and social care. In 2013, it set up Healthwatch England, which gradually went about overcoming well-founded cynicism, building its independent, local, community-based networks in every English local authority.
The Healthwatch network has involved many thousands of people to bring the experience of service users to bear, using genuine local knowledge, fuelled by an enduring belief in the principles of a quality NHS and social care system free at the point of use.
Abolition will again alienate many of those knowledgeably critical friends whose support Labour might have expected to attract and who will now express their views in other ways.Sharon GrantOutgoing chair, Healthwatch Haringey
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