Hampshire service concerned by closure of Healthwatch
Hampshire Healthwatch service is concerned by the announcement
Hampshire and Portsmouth Healthwatch service is concerned by the government's decision to close the local Healthwatch services.
The government announced the end of the services last month but has not yet given a time frame for the closures.
Healthwatch gather feedback from patients anonymously, helping to influence improvements in care.
Siobhain McCurrach, Area Director for Hampshire and Portsmouth Healthwatch, said: "It probably will cause some apprehension because with Healthwatch, we always anonymise the feedback we receive so people can feel that they can say whatever they like.
"We don't have an agenda, we just amplify the service user and the patient voice and we inform people who make those decisions about local services, what people are saying.
"We are concerned that people will have less confidence to have their feedback gathered.
"From the new methods, we don't know enough about these models yet, and my concern is that the independence and the encouragement of local people to have their say on local issues may be lost."
The changes that the government announced in the 10 year plan will require feedback gathering on health services to be transferred to Integrated Care Boards.
Healthwatch will remain open in the meantime, operating as usual.
She added: "I think communities may be rightly concerned that they don't quite know who to speak to in the interim.
"All I would say is to keep talking to Healthwatch because we are very much finger on the pulse in terms of knowing exactly what is happening with the local systems.
"We receive updates frequently from the Integrated Care Board and the local authority on how they are seeing the future developing.
"But again, they are waiting for information from the government about timings and the model that they need to follow for this gathering of feedback."