The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is launching a new initiative, relating to assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of NHS hospital providers. Its website confirms “From April 2016 we will be piloting how we assess the efficient and effective use of resources in NHS trusts.”
Professor Sir Mike Richards, Chief Inspector of Hospitals, explained, “Rating hospitals on the quality of their services has had a big impact in focusing attention on quality, right across the NHS. We will complete inspections of all acute trusts by April 2016, and all mental health, specialist acute and ambulance trusts by July 2016. Now is the right time to start seeking views and planning ahead, so that we can build on these foundations and develop the next phase of inspection. Earlier this year, the Secretary of State asked us to begin assessing how economically and efficiently NHS trusts are using their resources, as part of our inspections of hospitals.
I believe that adding an assessment for use of resources alongside our existing quality ratings gives an opportunity to make our assessments even more relevant to the operational challenges that trusts need to manage in order to maintain high-quality care. It will ensure that our assessments are relevant and meaningful across all aspects of providers’ work. We will build the new assessment into the changes to inspection that we introduce from April 2016 onwards.”
“Excellence” is listed as the CQC’s number one value. All areas that it examines are effectively underpinned by the pillars contained within the Investors in Excellence Standard. Resourcing is specifically addressed by the elements of the IiE Standard, and the ability to provide the required levels of resources to meet patient and other stakeholder needs within the health sector is given major focus as part of the assessment process. To learn more about how this can be achieved, examine our Improvement Toolkit.