DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
News Release issued by The Government News Network on 4 June 2008
Health Minister
Ben Bradshaw today set out new plans to drive up standards of care
and tackle underperformance in our hospitals and primary care trusts.
New measures set out in the vision document 'Developing the
NHS Performance Regime' will identify failing trusts, remove
poor managers and bring in new management, including from other
hospitals or from the private sector.
Health Services Minister Ben Bradshaw said:
"The NHS has come a long way in the last ten years, with
record investment, more clinical staff, shorter waiting times and
better cancer and heart disease survival rates. But there are
still unacceptable variations in performance and a small number of
NHS organisations where performance is not meeting the standards
which the public and patients expect. "
"As the Prime Minister made clear in his speech in January,
we will not tolerate underperformance in the NHS and for the first
time, we will publicly identify those trusts with poor safety and
clinical records. This new guidance sets out how we will tackle
poor performance and the turn-around regime which we are
establishing for those hospitals and Primary Care Trusts
identified as falling below minimum standards."
The new system means that:
* New minimum standards of quality, safety and financial
management will be established and trusts failing to meet these
criteria will be identified as 'challenged'
* The Chief Executive of the NHS will have responsibility for
ensuring that all challenged trusts have agreed performance
improvement plans with Strategic Health Authorities. These will
have defined time periods and milestones against which improvement
will be assessed
* Trusts unable to turn around their performance within the
expected time period will be determined to have failed on quality,
safety or financial grounds and the NHS Chief Executive will then
have responsibility for over-seeing changes which can involve
removing local management and bringing in a new management team
from either other parts of the NHS, NHS Foundation Trusts or the
private sector.
At the same time the Department of Health has set out insolvency
principles for Foundation hospitals and non-Foundation Trusts
designed to ensure that borrowing does not put NHS assets or the
continuity of services at risk.
David Nicholson, Chief Executive of the NHS, said:
"There are already a number of good examples of how weaker
performing trusts around the country have turned around their
performance, but we want to ensure consistency and introduce a
clearer and more transparent system. Our new vision sets out what
constitutes underperformance and failure and will be a valuable
tool to support NHS managers, Trusts and Health Authorities.
"It will also establish public accountability by helping
patients and the public understand how well their local NHS is
performing and what they should expect of it."
Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS Medical Director, said:
"It's important for patients to know how safe their
local hospital is and to feel confident in the competence and
professionalism of the staff. Getting effective and meaningful
performance measures is crucial.
"We are working with clinicians and managers to develop
consensus and ensure the indicators help drive up standards and
keep clinical and quality issues front and centre in how we
measure performance in the NHS."
Further information about the details of the regime will be set
out later this year:
NOTES TO EDITORS:
1. The three main options open to the NHS for new management are:
* New NHS management, drawn from [the top management pool]
* NHS Foundation Trust management, deployed to the trusts through
a merger of hospitals where an appropriate Foundation Trust is
willing to take on this role
* Private Sector management, provided on the basis of a
management contract, so that this will involve new management for
the trust but no shift of NHS assets or staff to the private sector.
2. A further programme of work will be carried out to develop the
detail of the vision and will be implemented as part of the
2008/09 Operating Framework.
3. Later this year we will publish the quality, safety and
financial criteria on which underperformance and failure will be
determined and how many trusts are not meeting them. Primary Care
Trusts and hospitals will be judged against different but
similarly challenging criteria.
4. In a speech to on 7 January 2008 at King's College London
and the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing, the Prime Minister
announced that 2008 would see the Secretary of State for Health
set out "new and decisive action against failing services".