Our Focus

You need services that work for you, your friends and family, or your carers and cared for. That’s why we want you to share your experiences of using health and care with us – both good and bad. We use your voice to encourage those who run services to act on what matters to you.

Healthwatch Waltham Forest gather and represent the views of local people in order to influence improvements in health and care service provision and share good practice.

We achieve this by working in collaboration with other organisations to identify causes for concern in the local community and using people’s experiences to influence relevant decision-making bodies.

Every voice counts

Everything that Healthwatch Waltham Forest does brings the voice and influence of local people to the development and delivery of local services. People need to feel that their local Healthwatch belongs to and reflects them and their local community. It needs to feel approachable, practical and dynamic, and to act on behalf of local people. We are here for YOU.

Healthwatch Waltham Forest is here to give the people of Waltham Forest a stronger voice to influence and challenge how health and social care services are provided within the Borough. We are responsible for:

  • Enabling people to share their views and concerns about health and social care services in Waltham Forest.
  • Helping to build a picture of where services are doing well and where they can be improved.
  • Providing authoritative, evidence-based feedback to organisations responsible for commissioning or delivering local health and social care services.
  • Working with the Waltham Forest Integrated Care Partnership Board to help make sure that services really are designed to meet local people’s needs.
  • Ensuring that the views and experiences of patients, carers and other service users are taken into account when local need assessments and strategies are prepared. 
  • Providing people with information about what to do when things go wrong; this includes either signposting people to or providing advocacy for people who want to complain about NHS services.
  • Alerting Healthwatch England to concerns about specific care providers.
  • Providing or signposting people to information about local health and care services, and how to access them.