Assessment for improvement : our approach : have your say / Healthcare Commission.

  • Great Britain. Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection
Date:
[2004]
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Assessment for improvement : our approach : have your say / Healthcare Commission. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    What is the role of the Healthcare Commission? Our role is to promote improvement in health and healthcare. We have a statutory duty to assess the performance of healthcare organisations, award annual performance ratings for the NHS and coordinate reviews of healthcare by others. What is this consultation document about? Assessment for improvement - Our approach sets out proposals for a new approach to assessing the performance of organisations that provide healthcare in the NHS and independent sector in England. We are consulting on our new approach until February 21* 2005. Following this, decisions will be made quickly so that healthcare organisations know how they are going to be assessed for 2005/2006. Why are we changing the current approach for the NHS? The current system of performance [or star] rating concentrates on performance in meeting the Government's targets for healthcare organisations — for example, waiting times to see a GP. These assessments will continue. However, the Government has now published a broader set of standards for all healthcare organisations and we also need to take account of these in assessing performance. The standards [see annex 4] cover issues of real concern to patients and the public, such as the safety, patient focus and clinical effectiveness of the healthcare organisation. They are more broad based than targets, giving a richer picture of how the healthcare organisation is performing. What are the objectives of our new approach? Our aim is that assessment of performance - and the information that is provided by the process — will promote improvements in healthcare in a range of ways. The new approach will help people to make better informed decisions about their care; it will lead to healthcare professionals developing and sharing better information on good practice; it will provide organisations with clearer expectations on standards of performance; it will enable managers to focus on areas of concern and learn from good practice; and it will tell the Government more about the quality and equity of services provided locally. Relevant assessments for those who use, and work in, healthcare To promote improvement, the system of assessment needs to measure and assess what really matters to people. This consultation will help us to improve the way in which we involve the public, patients and those who provide care, so that our assessments provide relevant, useful and robust information on what is important to them.