New Measures To Promote Quality In Darzi's One Year On Progress Report, UK

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 01 Jul 2009 - 2:00 PDT

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Plans to scrap some centrally driven targets and proposals for giving doctors and nurses control of their budgets were announced by Health Minister Lord Darzi today.

The new proposals are part of Lord Darzi's one year on report High Quality Care for All: Our Journey so Far which shows the progress the NHS has made on delivering high quality care to patients since he published his report on his review of the NHS in June last year.

Major improvements have been delivered by the NHS over the last year with millions of long-term condition patients now having personalised care plans. Over 75 per cent of GP surgeries now open for longer hours and there are 50 new GP led health centres and more GP surgeries opening in under-doctored areas.

The NHS has met targets to dramatically reduce C.difficile and MRSA infections and has ensured that no-one now waits more than 18 weeks from referral to treatment. The next steps will be to drive up quality even further and free up clinicians' time to do this.

Areas we will now work on include:

- Clinician budget ownership - We will look at giving doctors and nurses in hospitals ownership of their budget. Allowing clinicians to manage their budgets will promote entrepreneurship and innovative delivery of services built around the needs of the patient;

- Refining of targets based on evidence - We want to free up front line staff so they can focus on delivering high quality care and reducing costs. We will remove the obsolete 13 week outpatient and 26 week inpatient performance targets, as well as reviewing data collections across the board in order to reduce the burden on front line staff;

- Peer review accreditation system - We will create a new voluntary peer review system in which clinicians will judge the standard of their peers in order to drive up quality and achieve a 'gold standard' of care. The system will be developed through close collaboration and consultation with the relevant partners and stakeholders;

- Promoting the health and well-being of staff - As the NHS transforms from a sickness to a wellness service we will make the NHS a world leader at promoting the well-being of its staff.

Health Minister Lord Darzi said:

"Since we set out on our journey a year ago, I am delighted that such substantial progress has been made and that real improvements have been delivered across the country for NHS patients and staff. We have laid solid foundations. Quality is well on its way to becoming the organising principle of the NHS.

"Quality is what we aspire to and innovation is how we achieve it. High quality care is better for patients and often better value for taxpayers. The progress made since last year in the quality provided to patients and the safety of their care was not driven through top-down targets but by giving responsibility to the staff at local level.

"The fantastic progress made since the publication of my report last year and the commitment we are making to continuing this will mean that our focus on quality will deliver a health service that meets the expectations of NHS patients, the aspirations of NHS staff and the value for money demanded by taxpayers."

Health Secretary Andy Burnham said:

"Ara Darzi set out a vision for an NHS with quality at its centre. We have made great progress on delivering this vision but it will be innovation, productivity and prevention that will drive the next stage in creating a people-centred NHS.

"When I came into this job, I said we should 'deep clean' the target regime so that it achieves what we all want: better patient care and more staff satisfaction. So to show we mean business, we will remove the 13 and 26 week inpatient performance targets which will reduce the burden on frontline staff, freeing them up to focus on delivering high quality care for all."

Professor Ian Gilmore, President of the Royal College of Physicians,

Said:

"We welcome the progress made since the publication of the first report

from Lord Darzi, particularly the focus on the quality agenda. The challenge for the NHS is to ensure that the components of the agenda are practical and deliverable ensuring that the laudable aspirations can be transferred from paper into practice, especially in an increasingly cash-strapped environment.

"The College is delighted to be leading the national pilot project on the accreditation of stroke services. In addition, we support Academic Health Science Centres, which have the opportunity to be a real force in harnessing leading-edge research into new technologies and treatments for the benefits of patients."

Source
Department of Health, UK