HANSARD
Quality Strategy for NHS-funded Care in England
- I am pleased to inform the House of the publication of our new quality strategy for NHS-funded care in England, developed by the National Quality Board, which sets out a clear and ambitious approach to improving the quality of care across the NHS in England, and represents delivery of a key commitment from our 10-year health plan.The strategy reaffirms that quality must, once again, be the organising principle of the NHS. It sets a clear national objective that high-quality care should be available to everyone, everywhere, regardless of who they are or where they live.The strategy makes clear that quality is defined across three inseparable and equally important domains: patient safety, clinical effectiveness and patient experience. While patient safety rightly remains the foundation, the strategy marks a renewed and explicit focus on the other domains of quality, so that our efforts drive improvements in outcomes and ensure a consistently high standard of care and experience for all patients.The need for this renewed focus is clear. Too many people still experience variation in outcomes, fragmented care, and unequal access to high-quality services. The strategy responds directly to these challenges, with a strong emphasis on reducing unwarranted variation and tackling health inequalities across all three domains of quality.Rather than introducing a new set of policies, the strategy provides a coherent framework for delivery, bringing together existing commitments from the Government’s 10-year health plan. It aligns national priorities and clarifies how improvement will be led, overseen and delivered across the system. It is a call to action for leaders, clinicians and staff across the NHS to treat quality as their primary purpose, to use data transparently, and to adopt value-based approaches that direct resources to the interventions delivering the greatest benefit for patients and communities.The strategy sets out how the NHS will focus its efforts on the areas where improvements will have the greatest impact on outcomes, experience and value, including major conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and severe mental illness. It also reinforces the importance of improving maternity and neonatal care, patient safety, and the consistent delivery of evidence-based care. The National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce will be taking forward work to improve the safety, effectiveness, and experiences of maternity and neonatal care.We are also placing a renewed emphasis on transparency, accountability and leadership. Quality must be owned at every level of the system: providers are accountable for the care they deliver, integrated care boards must commission on the basis of quality and population need, and national bodies must provide clear leadership and oversight.