What is an Enter and view?

Our statutory powers

Established in law by the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 (and amended by the Health and Social Care Act 2012), Enter & View is the statutory power granted to every local Healthwatch.

It allows our authorised representatives to observe how services are being delivered, to collect the views of service users at the point of delivery, and to collect the views of their relatives and carers.

Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin can legally conduct an Enter & View visit with any of the following organisations or individuals:

• NHS Trusts
• NHS Foundation Trusts
• Local Authorities
• A person providing primary medical services (e.g. GPs)
• A person providing primary dental services (i.e. dentists)
• A person providing ophthalmic services (i.e. opticians)
• A person providing pharmaceutical services (e.g. community pharmacists)
• A person who owns or controls premises where ophthalmic and pharmaceutical services are provided
• Bodies or institutions which are contracted by the Local Authority or the NHS to provide health or care services (e.g. adult social care homes and day-care centres)

It is important to remember that Enter & View is an engagement tool, not an inspection. The aim of Enter & View is to put together a picture of what people think of the care they are receiving.

Who can carry out an Enter and View?

Only our authorised representatives can conduct an Enter & View visit.

These are highly-skilled and motivated volunteers who have been fully DBS-checked, and trained to a high standard. All authorised representatives will have completed – at a minimum – the following training courses:

• Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin volunteer induction
• Equality and Diversity
• Confidentiality
• Data Protection
• Adult Safeguarding
• Deprivation of Liberties
• Enter & View

During an Enter & View visit, authorised representatives can be identified by their official ID badges. They will also carry a letter with them, signed by Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin staff, authorising them to conduct an Enter & View visit on our behalf. It will include the date, time, and location of the visit, along with a list of participating authorised representatives.

How does it work?

Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin can perform either an announced or an unannounced visit – the latter only being carried out rarely,  and only in situations where we believe an unannounced visit to be necessary to gather the evidence we need.

The Enter & View Committee will make an informed decision to Enter & View a particular care provider, using evidence collected by Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin. This evidence, and the discussion leading up to the decision, will be documented and given to the service provider we plan to visit.

Once the decision has been made and the service provider informed (where necessary), a team of at least two authorised representatives (one of whom will be a ‘lead’) will conduct the visit.

During the visit, they will speak to people on the premises to find out what they think about the standard of care on offer, as well as making their own observations. All of this will be noted down in an Enter & View recording pack.

At all times, our authorised representatives will take precautions to make sure that the provision of care is not interrupted, and that the safety, privacy, and dignity of patients is respected.

What happens next?

After an Enter & View visit has been completed, our authorised representatives will go away and write a report based on the evidence they have collected.

This report will go into detail about what they saw during the visit, what people they spoke to said, and any other information that they feel is relevant.

It will finish by making a series of recommendations for improvements, if there are any, as well as offering any commendations for good performance.

Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin aims to send a draft copy of this report to the service provider within 20 days of the visit, giving them the chance to respond to our recommendations or suggest changes for the sake of accuracy.

Once the service provider has had a chance to respond, a finalised version including their comments will be published and made available for download on our website.