By law, health and social care providers have a duty to allow a representative of Healthwatch to carry out an Enter and View visit.
- The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007
- The Local Authorities (Public Health Functions and Entry to Premises by Local Healthwatch Representatives) Regulations 2013.
Because Enter and View isn't a statutory function for us, we're able to choose if, when, how and where we carry out Enter and View visits, depending on our priorities.
What is Enter and View?
An Enter and View visit is an opportunity for us to listen to the views of the people using healthcare services, and make recommendations for improvements based on what you tell us.
Enter and View allows us to:
- To go into health and social care premises to hear and see how people experience the service.
- To collect the views of people using the service at the point of delivery.
- To collect the views of carers and relatives of people using the service.
- To observe the nature and quality of services.
- To collate evidence-based feedback, based on people have told them on the day.
- To report to providers, regulators, Local Authority and NHS commissioners and quality assurers, the public, 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.
For health and social care organisations:
Your responsibility when it comes to cooperating with Healthwatch Milton Keynes
Here's what we've been doing recently
Enter & View 2020/21
During 2021, once restrictions allowed, we visited 10 local care and nursing homes. We focused on building a picture of residents’ general day to day experience, and wanted to understand how COVID had affected their life and their care.
All the reports from our visits are available on our website. If you need them in an alternative format, please let us know.
Enter & View 2019/20
We delivered a follow-up programme to see how care homes we'd visited previously had had taken action against our recommendations.
We developed a new programme of Enter and View visits, exploring experience in Learning Disability residential Homes, sheltered and supported housing, and Domiciliary Care.
You could make a difference by volunteering for our Enter and View programme.
You can read our Enter and View Policy here.