Recommendation F147: Coordination of local public scrutiny bodies
From Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, published 6 February 2013.
Recommendation
Guidance should be given to promote the coordination and cooperation between Local Healthwatch, Health and Wellbeing Boards, and local government scrutiny committees.
In brief (written by this site)
In September 2024 commentary published in February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England stated that the recommendation was implemented, noting that guidance on local authority scrutiny had been updated in January 2024 to establish five best-practice principles for collaborative working (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). Earlier, in May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team noted that the government had accepted the recommendation and had previously issued health scrutiny guidance to local authorities in June 2014 (The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team, May 2024).
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
Government response
Accepted.
The Department of Health has worked with partners to develop guidance that will support effective scrutiny by local government of the commissioning and delivery of local services, helping to ensure they are effective and safe.
The guidance is aimed at local authorities, Health and Wellbeing Boards, NHS commissioners and providers, and local Healthwatch. The guidance underlines the importance of all partners in the system understanding their own and each other’s roles and responsibilities, and working together to improve the quality of services.
The guidance also describes the new powers provided to local Healthwatch by the Local Authorities (Public Health, Health and Wellbeing Boards and Health Scrutiny) Regulations 2013, and describes how Health and Wellbeing Boards and local Healthwatch can work collaboratively with local government scrutiny committees to ensure that the views and concerns of patients and public are heard throughout the scrutiny process.
The guidance is due to be published in November 2013.
How this response relates to the recommendation
Site note: This is volume two of "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (Cm 8777-II), the government's response to the Inquiry's 290 recommendations, published by the Department of Health on GOV.UK on 19 November 2013 and dated to that day here. The PDF the row links to is the accessible edition, whose title page reads "January 2014". The Department of Health has been the Department of Health and Social Care since January 2018. The volume says it includes accounts from each of the national organisations the recommendations name, but it does not mark which passage each organisation wrote, so every row is filed under the Department that published it.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
Government responded via "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (2014), a single document covering all 290 recommendations with a blanket acceptance. Individual recommendation responses were not broken out.
Delivery
DHSC and NHS England say completed (27 February 2026)
Guidance on local authority scrutiny was updated in January 2024.
Under the health overview and scrutiny committee principles, there are 5 points of best practice for ways of working between health overview and scrutiny committees, ICBs, ICPs and other local system partners. The principles are that joint working should be outcome focused, balanced, inclusive, collaborative and evidence informed. To ensure the benefits of scrutiny are realised, these principles should form the basis of ongoing discussions between system partners about how they will work together.
Site note: DHSC and NHS England's own account of progress, supplied to the Thirlwall Inquiry in September 2024 and printed in the Inquiry legal team's Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025, published 27 February 2026). It is not a finding of the Inquiry. Their reviewed extent of implementation reads “Implemented - Closed”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 147, PDF page 494.
Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (11 February 2015)
In June 2014, the Department issued guidance to local authorities on how to scrutinise local health systems. The guidance supports local government, the NHS and other local partners to understand and develop their roles in relation to health scrutiny, and ensure that it adds value for local communities. The publication of the guidance was put back in order to ensure consistency with related policy around local consultation on proposals for service reconfiguration, and to allow additional engagement with local authorities and other system partners.
The Department of Health, NHS England and Public Health England have jointly commissioned a programme of support for 2014/15 for local authorities in exercising their health scrutiny powers.
Site note: This is the supporting annex published on 11 February 2015 with "Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries" (Cm 9009), attached to the GOV.UK page as "Culture change in the NHS supporting annex". The annex has no title page; that title is GOV.UK's and the PDF's own. Its table has four columns (No., Recommendation, Hard Truths Government response, Progress update), and the row carries the Progress update cell. No column says which organisation wrote an update, so the row is filed under the Department of Health (now the Department of Health and Social Care), which published it.
What other bodies have found
In their own words. These do not change the delivery statement above.
Thirlwall Inquiry legal team (15 May 2024)
This recommendation was accepted by the Government.
In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Department of Health said it was working with partners to develop this guidance.
In the February 2015 Culture Change report, the Government said that guidance had been issued to local authorities on how to scrutinise local health systems in June 2014.
Site note: The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team's own notes on implementation, from its Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024). The review does not colour its Extent of Implementation cell for this recommendation green; it leaves the cell uncoloured where a recommendation was rejected, where evidence of implementation was insufficient, or where steps had been taken but implementation was not yet complete. Table row: section 16.2 No. 147, PDF page 461.
Source
Responsible bodies
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- Department of Health and Social Care
Response, delivery statement - DHSC and NHS England
Delivery statement - Thirlwall Inquiry legal team
Finding