Our response to The King's Fund report - March 2026
The publication of “The future of patient voice: learning from the Healthwatch model” by The King’s Fund provides an important and timely assessment of how people and communities are heard across health and care. What do the key factors they raise mean for the future? We ask some questions based on their findings.
The report is clear: Healthwatch has made a significant impact.
It highlights:
- The importance of independence from government and services
- The ability to gather rich insight, including from seldom heard groups
- A local to national model that connects community voice to system influence.
While the report acknowledges challenges – largely linked to funding and commissioning – these are not failures of the model itself, but of how it has been resourced and structured.
Our response to this report asks questions about what this means for future plans and how these questions are being addressed.
“Any future model must enhance – not weaken – the system’s capacity to hear, understand and respond to people’s experiences.”
Downloads
File download
Our response to The King's Fund report - March 2026 (pdf)
Our response to The King's Fund report - March 2026 (word)
