Local Healthwatch Impacts 2025-26

Each year, local Healthwatch organisations publish their annual reports. Collectively, Healthwatch reported engaging with more than 370,000 people. Together, this work provides a unique insight into people’s experiences of health and care services, the issues affecting communities and the improvements local Healthwatch organisations help bring about.

This review highlights a network whose independently determined priorities often reflect many of the themes now shaping national health and care policy. Key themes include:

• Local Healthwatch provides an important source of community intelligence and early warning.
• Local Healthwatch continues to play a vital role in reaching people whose voices might otherwise go unheard.
• Healthwatch is helping services work better.

Beyond local impact, local Healthwatch continues to contribute to national improvement through work on primary care, dentistry, digital inclusion, women’s health, health inequalities and wider policy discussions.