THE head of the county's independent health and social care watchdog has said she feels 'vindicated' about the work the organisation is doing thanks to a new NHS document.

The guide for clinical commission groups, the bodies responsible for ‘buying’ health services across the country, said Healthwatch organisations were 'well-placed' to carry out engagement work, because of their links with patients, the wider public, the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, as well as local authority health overview and scrutiny committees.

It added these links enabled Healthwatch to connect with hard-to-reach groups, and said: “Local Healthwatch provide a good source of existing patient and public insight into how services are being used at a local level.”

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Healthwatch Oxfordshire works to change services in the county by collecting real patient experiences of the health and social care available.

Executive director Rosalind Pearce said: “This NHS guide supports the core work that we do, and vindicates our strategy of supporting the roles of patient participation groups.

“It also emphasises the valuable opportunities for involvement provided by voluntary sector organisations, which we will also include in our forward strategy through the Oxfordshire Wellbeing Network and our own events.”

The full ‘patient and public participation in commissioning health and care’ document is available online at healthwatchoxfordshire.co.uk.