.gif)
Department of Health and Social Care
 Printable version
|
 E-mail this to a friend
|
NHS staff help develop measures of quality care
Doctors, nurses and other NHS staff in England are helping to develop new standards to measure and improve the quality of care in the NHS.
Local NHS organisations are being encouraged to engage with staff to help develop a framework for a new generation of indicators that will measure quality at local, organisational, regional and national levels.
Some of the regional indicators will also be used to measure the implementation of the local visions for improved healthcare produced by every Strategic Health Authority (SHA) as part of Lord Darzi's NHS Next Stage Review - 'High Quality Care for All'.
The Department of Health has identified a list of existing indicators used by various parts of the NHS to measure performance. Staff are being invited to comment on the usefulness of each indicator which applies to their specialism and to suggest other measures they may already use but which are not on the list. The indictors are listed on the NHS Information Centre website, which staff can use to feedback online.
Health Minister Professor Lord Darzi said:
"We can only improve the quality of care we give to patients if we constantly and methodically measure it. Developing a set of quality indicators in partnership with frontline staff will allow clinicians to measure their team's performance in a constant strive to improve and compare it with their peers across the NHS. These indicators will soon become a resource to challenge and stimulate NHS staff to drive up standards in healthcare.
"I want NHS staff to work together to develop useful and meaningful measures of their work. This will help improve the entire patient experience by delivering safer and more effective care."
The results of regional and online engagement will be used to develop a range of indicators to be introduced from 2009.
Notes to Editors:
The survey is being run by the Information Centre on behalf of the Department of Health. Details of the proposals for quality indicators to be used in 2009/10 are at: http://www.ic.nhs.uk/cqi in an interactive format to allow viewers to rate the indicators and provide detailed comments and suggestions.
1. Health professionals have until 12 December 2008 to respond
2. 'High Quality Care For All', and local SHA vision documents can be found at: http://www.ournhs.nhs.uk
3. The NHS Information Centre is England's authoritative, independent source of health and social care information. It works with more than 300 health and social care providers nationwide to provide the facts and figures that help the NHS and social services run effectively. Its role is to collect data, analyse it and convert it into useful information which helps providers improve their services and supports academics, researchers, regulators and policymakers in their work.
4. For further information, please contact the Department of Health press office: 020 7210 5221.
