Enter and view volunteers

What is Enter and View?

Healthwatch have a legal power to visit health and social care services and see them in action. This power to Enter and View services offers a way for Healthwatch to meet some of their statutory functions and allows them to identify what is working well with services and where they could be improved.

Organisations must allow an authorised representative to Enter & View and observe activities on premises controlled by the provider as long as this does not affect the provision of care or the privacy and dignity of people using services.

These powers do not extend to Enter & View of services relating to local authorities’ social services functions for people under the age of 18. Providers do not have to allow entry to parts of a care home which are not communal areas or allow entry to premise if their work on the premises relates to children’s social services.

To carry out enter and view visits we have volunteers and team members who have undergone training to represent us in this task.

Where can Enter and View take place?

The legislation places a duty on health and social care providers to allow Authorised Representatives of Healthwatch to carry out an Enter and View visit on premises where health and social care is publicly funded and delivered.

This includes:

• NHS Trusts
• NHS Foundation Trusts
• Local authorities
• Primary medical services, such as GPs
• Primary dental services, such as dentists
• Primary ophthalmic services, such as opticians
• Pharmaceutical services, such as community pharmacists

• Premises which are contracted by local authorities or the NHS to provide health or care services, such as adult social care homes and day-care centres

  The list of service providers who have a duty to allow entry is set out in section 225 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 and supplemented by Reg 14 of the 2013 regulations.

Enter and View is the opportunity for authorised representatives:

• To go into health and social care premises to hear and see how the consumer experiences the service
• To collect the views of service users (patients and residents) at the point of service delivery
• To collect the views of carers and relatives of service users
• To observe the nature and quality of services – an observation involving all the senses
• To collate evidence-based feedback
• To report to providers, Care Quality Commission (CQC), Local Authority and NHS commissioners and quality assurers, Healthwatch England and any other relevant partners.
• To develop insights and recommendations across multiple visits to inform strategic decision making at local and national levels.

What happens on a visit?

Our Enter and View visits can be announced or unannounced; it will depend on why we are carrying out the visit. 

If it is announced, a member of the Healthwatch team will contact the provider in advance and let them know about the intended visit. 

A small team of Healthwatch volunteers will visit to observe the service. They will all have received training, and will all have had a DBS check. 

They will ask staff, service users, and family members if present, some questions in a friendly and informal style about their experiences of the service. Some questions may relate to experiences of health and social care services more generally. 

After an Enter and View visit, a short report will be written up and shared with the provider of the service. Recommendations may be made in order to help make services better for the people who use them. The report may also be shared with relevant commissioners and be put up on this website.