NHS watchdog plans 'risk another Mid Staffs' In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, they warn that the decision to downgrade new Local Healthwatch groups will increase the chance of scandals such as that at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, where up to 1,200 "excess deaths" occurred due to sub-standard care. Under Government plans, existing organisations that act as the "eyes and ears" of patients, called Local Involvement Networks (Links) are to be replaced by Local Healthwatch groups in April 2013. Originally, Links leaders were pleased, believing the Government was committed to giving health campaigners sharper teeth. But they say ministers quietly unveiled new plans last Monday that will see these new bodies striped of their 'statutory body' status - although not statutory powers - and forced to become accountable to local authorities. The letter states: "The Coalition Government promised to ensure greater NHS accountability to patients and the public. We believe this aspiration has now been abandoned. The signatories fear the 152 Local Healthwatch organisations, in their altered form "will have less influence than the current system and will be too weak to prevent the type of disasters that have traumatised residents of many nursing homes and hundreds of patients at the Mid Staffordshire hospital." A Department of Health spokesman said: "It is nonsense to say we are watering down our policies. We have no intention of removing the statutory functions of local Healthwatch. In fact, we are giving local authorities and their local communities greater freedom and flexibility to shape their organisation, so they can better engage and support local people in health and social care services.