Raising the standard of healthcare in England

In 2005 we introduced a new system for assessing how well every NHS trust in England performs each year ("the annual health check"). Standards have risen significantly as a result. In the first year of the annual health check (2005/06) only two trusts were rated "excellent" for both the quality of their services and their use of financial resources.  This number rose to 19 in 2006/07, and then to 42 in the 2007/08 annual health check. Our aim is to raise standards in every NHS trust in the country and to continue to focus our assessment on what matters to patients and the public.

Improving maternity services

In 2007 we carried out the largest ever survey of mothers in England who had recently given birth in NHS maternity units. Nearly all of the 26,000 women who responded said they had had a positive experience, but we recommended that more women should be involved in decisions about their care. We followed this with a full review of maternity services. Since we published our findings, the Government announced £330 million extra funding for maternity services and a promise to recruit 4,000 more midwives.

Helping to stop the rise of superbugs

We have raised awareness of the problem of infection control within hospitals and made tackling superbugs the number one issue for trusts. We carried out two investigations at hospitals where people have died during outbreaks of healthcare-associated infections. Our investigation reports prompted the Government to insist that from 2008 every hospital in England is checked once a year to make sure that it is taking the steps needed to combat the problem.

Promoting dignity in the care of older people

Dignity is an important issue for all patients. It includes making sure that they are helped with their basic needs, receive the right kind and quantity of food, and are treated with respect by staff. In 2007, we made unannounced visits to a sample of NHS hospitals to check that they were treating older patients with dignity and respect. We found that a third of them were at risk of not meeting the required standards and called for them to make changes. We will be making more unannounced visits in the future.

Improving services for people with learning difficulties

In  2005 and 2006 we investigated two NHS trusts because we had concerns about their care for people with learning difficulties. As a result these trusts significantly improved their services. To find out if a wider problem existed, in 2007 we audited of all services for people with learning difficulties in England - the first of its kind. As a result of the audit, we called for sweeping changes. Now services throughout the country are more aware of the standards of care that people with learning difficulties have a right to expect and are making changes to achieve them.

Information about healthcare for all 

Everyone should have access to as much information as possible when deciding where and how to be treated for a health problem. That information needs to be clearly presented and easy to access. We first published our annual performance ratings for NHS trusts in an accessible web format in 2006, and we have since added information about independent healthcare. We teamed up with the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery for Great Britain and Ireland to launch a website showing survival rates for heart surgery at hospitals in England: Heart Surgery in the UK.