All About: Enter and View

What is Enter and View?

Healthwatch have a legal power to visit health and social care services and see them in action. This power to Enter and View services offers a way for Healthwatch to meet some of their statutory functions and allows them to identify what is working well with services and where they could be improved.

Although Enter and View sometimes gets referred to as an ‘inspection’, it should not be described as such.

Healthwatch statutory functions

The legislative framework for Healthwatch is split between what Healthwatch must do (duties) and what they may do (powers). Healthwatch have a power under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 and Part 4 of the Local Authorities Regulations 2013 to carry out Enter and View visits

Healthwatch should consider how Enter and View activity links to the statutory functions in section 221 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007.

The purpose of an Enter and View visit is to collect evidence of what works well and what could be improved to make people’s experiences better. Healthwatch can use this evidence to make recommendations and inform changes both for individual services as well as system-wide.

Where can Enter and View take place?

The legislation places a duty on health and social care providers to allow Authorised Representatives of Healthwatch to carry out an Enter and View visit on premises where health and social care is publicly funded and delivered.

This includes:

• NHS Trusts
• NHS Foundation Trusts
• Local authorities
• Primary medical services, such as GPs
• Primary dental services, such as dentists
• Primary Ophthalmic services, such as opticians
• Pharmaceutical services, such as community pharmacists
• Premises which are contracted by local authorities or the NHS to provide health or care services, such as adult social care homes and day-care centres
• The list of service providers who have a duty to allow entry is set out in section 225 of the
• Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 and supplemented by Reg 14 of the 2013 regulations.