Hospital Performance

The regulation of health and adult social care was previously carried out by the Healthcare Commission and the Commission for Social Care Inspection. The Mental Health Act Commission also monitored functions with regard to the operation of the Mental Health Act 1983. The legislation replaced these three bodies and created a single, integrated regulator for health and adult social care – the Care Quality Commission.

The Care Quality Commission’s functions include assuring safety and quality, performance assessment and ensuring that regulation and inspection activity across health and adult social care is coordinated and managed.

The Care Quality Commission will continue to maintain the process of awarding NHS trusts an annual performance rating which consists of two elements: quality of services and use of resources.
The annual health check includes:

• an assessment of the trust's performance against new and existing targets;
• performance against standards for better health;
• use of resources (how well trusts are using their resources and whether they are achieving value for money); and
• a programme of reviews / inspections.

The overall aim of the assessment of performance is to promote the delivery of quality healthcare. It will also help people to make better informed decisions about their care, promote the sharing of information and give clearer expectations on standards of performance.

As part of the annual health check all NHS organisations were required to submit a self-declaration of their compliance with the Department of Health's core standard over the period 1 April 2008 - 31 March 2009.

	Click here for the 2008/09 declaration from The Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust.
	Click here to visit the Care Quality Commission website.

For more information about the annual health check, click here to email Cath Gorman, Head of Standards.