Local HealthWatch Services for RBKC, LBHF and WCC

Local Healthwatch will be the independent consumer champion for patients and users of health and social care services in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and in the City of Westminster.

Local Healthwatch will be membership based and aim to empower and represent the diverse communities in each borough enabling commissioners to rely on it as a key facilitator of user engagement in the relevant service areas. It will provide intelligence — including evidence from people's views and experiences — to influence the policy, planning, commissioning and delivery of publicly funded health and social care with a view to ensuring that the needs of service users are met.

Local Healthwatch will have a reputation for being a robust and credible participant 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 required standards. It will gain the trust of the general public as well as other health and social care stakeholder groups by being responsive and acting promptly and effectively when things go wrong.

It will operate effectively and efficiently so that the councils can demonstrate value for money against agreed outcomes.

The service will ensure there are individual governance and specific arrangements in each borough to guarantee that the service is locally accountable and reflects independent local views and concerns.

Additional information: S.183 of the Health and Social Care Act, 2012 requires Local HealthWatch services to be provided by a social enterprise. Accordingly, tenderers must already be a social enterprise; become a social enterprise; or be willing to create a social enterprise through which the services can be provided.

Staff providing the services must be DBS cleared if they have direct contact with children or vulnerable adults.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and Westminster City Council are intending to award the contract to a single service provider to cover the three boroughs' requirements.

The contract will be for an initial fixed term of two years with the option to extend for a further 12 months.