The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 273 No 7328 p805
4 December 2004

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

  Acrobat Reader

News summary

New NHS ratings system

Next year will be the last year of star ratings in the NHS, the Healthcare Commission announced earlier this week. The commission is to introduce a new “health check” system of annual performance ratings and is consulting patients, members of the public, health care workers and clinicians between now and 21 February 2005 about what should be assessed.

The health check will, the commission says, be broader than the current system and will “cover issues of real concern to patients and the public, such as the safety, patient focus and clinical effectiveness of the health care organisation”. The commission also aims to make assessment less of a burden for those being inspected, by using information gathered by other organisations.