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F148

Training

Mid Staffs Inquiry · Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry · Issued 6 February 2013

Government responseDepartment of Health and Social Care: Accepted (Nov 2013)

DeliveryDHSC and NHS England say in progress (Feb 2026)Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (Feb 2015)

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

The complexities of the health service are such that proper training must be available to the leadership of Local Healthwatch as well as, when the occasion arises, expert advice.

Mid Staffs Inquiry, Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry · 6 Feb 2013 Source PDF →

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

In commentary provided in September 2024 and published in February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England stated that Healthwatch continues to offer a range of training and resources for local Healthwatch staff and volunteers (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). Earlier, in May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team reviewed implementation, noting that the government had accepted the recommendation and that training, support, and access to expert advice were being made available (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.

Report-level response context

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.

Government response

●Department of Health and Social Care · Accepted · 19 Nov 2013

Speaker not recorded. Source: Department of Health, Hard Truths: the Journey to Putting Patients First, volume 2 (Cm 8777-II), November 2013

Accepted.
Healthwatch England is working to support local Healthwatch in their identification and analysis of issues in their communities and to support them to raise these issues in the appropriate manner. Already, local Healthwatch organisations are rightly working in partnership with local community and interest groups that have a wealth of expertise and experience available to them. Local Healthwatch organisations also have the flexibility to source expert advice as they require, while training and support is being made available through Healthwatch England.
As an example of what has already been achieved, Healthwatch England has this year delivered training to local Healthwatch organisations across the country to ensure that they can maximise the impact of their power to enter and view local services.

Extract from: Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First. Volume Two of the Government Response to the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry: Response to the Inquiry's Recommendations

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.

Delivery

●DHSC and NHS England say in progress · 27 Feb 2026

Healthwatch continues to offer a range of training and resources for local Healthwatch staff and volunteers.

From: The Thirlwall Inquiry: Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025)

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 - Ongoing”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 148, PDF page 494-495.

●Department of Health and Social Care says in progress · 11 Feb 2015

Healthwatch England continues to provide support to local Healthwatch so that they can deliver effectively. During 2013/14 Healthwatch England provided training for local Healthwatch on entering and viewing local services and provided support across a range of other local Healthwatch activities. In 2014/15, Healthwatch England has delivered further training, for example on working with the Care Quality Commission inspection teams, and has also developed a network for local Healthwatch chairs.

The Department has also funded the Local Government Association in 2014/15 to support the development of an effective local Healthwatch network, with a specific focus on supporting local Healthwatch to be effective members of local health and wellbeing boards.

From: Culture Change in the NHS supporting Annex (annex to Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries)

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.

Site note: The Inquiry addressed this recommendation to Healthwatch England, not to the Department of Health. The annex gives this update in the Department's publication and does not say who wrote it, so the row is the Department's report of the progress made on 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 Government said that Healthwatch England was working to support local Healthwatch in their identification and analysis of issues, with training and support made available through Healthwatch England. On expert advice, the Government said that local Healthwatch organisations had the flexibility to source such advice as they require. In the February 2015 Hard Truths report, the Government said that Healthwatch England continued to provide training and support to local Healthwatch.

From: The Thirlwall Inquiry: Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024)

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. 148, PDF page 461-462.

How this page is built

The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.