Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin Citizens Involvement Charter
This new charter recognises and promotes the importance of the people of Telford and Wrekin having their voices heard and used by policy-makers, commissioners and providers of services within the NHS, social services and public health services.
The charter is for organisations, community groups and grassroots collectives to commit to the same values and work with Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin, the independent champion for people who use health and social care services.
With the advent of the Integrated Care System and integrated place partnerships, one being Telford and Wrekin plus the new commissioning body NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Integrated Care Board it is vital that people’s views continue to be heard and used when planning, changing and providing services.
It is important to acknowledge that some parts of the system seek peoples’ views through a range of organisations, groups and communities. However, once people’s views are submitted to various parts of the system they are duly consumed. Reliance on what impact they have had and degree to the views influencing service provision is then a matter of trust with no outward transparency. This can lead to similar questions being asked of people by multiple organisations both statutory and community. This can lead to apathy within people and communities with change being observed and diminishing future desire to share experiences of services.
The charter seeks to break this cycle, place people’s views about services in the public domain, accessible for all, and to include providers responses to how peoples voices have been heard. Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin under its statutory independent role seeks to enter into partnership with local groups and organisations to achieve this aim.
On receipt of people’s views, dependent on the nature and number of views we may collate and store ready for future use when there is sufficient weight to seek to achieve change or use them immediately preparing a report with observations and recommendations to address the issues with our right to seek information and a reply from statutory partners[i].
Where a report is written full credit will be given to the partner organisation providing the original information and published on the Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin website to achieve the public sharing of the information. The accreditation will be helpful to local organisations and groups to show their impact and aid future grant applications but also demonstrate to the people who provided their stories initially to see how it is used and hopefully create a positive trend to share futures stories and experiences in order to achieve service improvement.
Organisations, community groups and grassroots collectives agreeing to be Charter Champions will be provided with a unique Logo to use to demonstrate their champion status and create an identifiable brand for Telford and Wrekin.
A full list of partner organisations will be published on our website in addition to a record of all reports and information requests sent to health, social care and public health services as well as the responses.
To sign up as Charter Champion use this link or the QR code:
https://forms.office.com/e/fURan1Spj3
[i] Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 Section 224. Available from:
