This afternoon I met representatives of Havering Healthwatch at a dedicated reception in the House of Commons to celebrate their work.
Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion created to gather and represent the views of the public over the quality of local healthcare. Local Healthwatch teams represent the views of people who use services, carers and the public on the Health and Wellbeing boards set up by local authorities, and report concerns about the quality of health care to Healthwatch England, which can then recommend that the Care Quality Commission take action.
I met Healthwatch Havering's Executive Director, Ian Buckmaster, and Chairman, Anne-Marie Dean, to talk about the quality of our local services, particularly the performance of Queen's Hospital and our local Clinical Commissioning Group.