The State of Care report: patient safety in NHS acute hospitals

摘要

As the old adage goes, 'to know where you are going, you must know where you have been'. To determine the level of performance of any person or organisation it is necessary to monitor and measure progress against set standards, targets and objectives. If this is done regularly and effectively, over time trends can be identified and a real-time picture of service quality emerges. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has undertaken a detailed analysis of acute hospital care using 3 years of inspection reports-inspections of all 136 acute non-specialist trusts and all 18 specialist trusts-which has provided it with a baseline of quality (CQC, 2017). It can be a difficult task to assess health quality and to track trends and changes with large and complex organisations such as the NHS. Another complication when looking at quality over time is that the NHS is embedded in the governmental and political structure of the country. It seems impossible to separate the NHS from the political agendas of governments and it is subject to almost constant change and adaption.