Enter and view

We have a legal power to visit hospitals and care homes and see them in action.

This power is known as 'enter and view'.

It offers a way for us to meet some of our statutory functions and to identify what is working well with services and where they could be made better.

As part of our work, we ask for a response from the care homes to our recommendations with actions they are taking or going to take.

What do the visits involve?

Enter and view is the opportunity for Healthwatch North Yorkshire to:

Enter publicly funded health and social care settings to see and hear first hand experiences about the service.
Listen to residents, family and friends, as well as staff to understand their experiences of the services provided.
Observe how the service is delivered, often by using a themed approach.
Collect the views of service users (patients and residents) at the point of service delivery.
Collect the views of carers and relatives through evidence based feedback by observing the nature and quality of services.
Report to providers, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), North Yorkshire Council (known as a local authority), commissioners of services, and our national Healthwatch.

Organising visits

They are carried out as announced visits where arrangements are made with the service provider, or, if certain circumstances dictate, as unannounced visits.

Enter and view visits can happen if people tell us there is a problem with a service but, equally, they can occur when services have a good reputation – so we can learn about and share examples of what a service does well.