News Items 

News Feeds / Healthcheck Highlights Need for Continued Improvement

Healthcheck Highlights Need For Continued Improvement

 

14 October 2009

 

NHS Bolton – the Primary Care Trust serving the town – has scored “Good” for Use of Resources and “Fair” for Quality of Care in the annual “healthcheck” carried out by England’s healthcare watchdog, the Care Quality Commission.

 

The healthcheck measures each NHS organisation in terms of

·        use of resources – how effectively taxpayers money is spent

·        quality of care – looks at both the core standards of care expected to be met and performance on specific targets

 

Last year NHS Bolton was been assessed as “good” for both quality and use of resources, having improved on previous years.

 

The possible Care Quality Commission ratings are weak, fair, good and excellent.  The standards needed to reach each level are raised each year, encouraging the NHS to continue its efforts to improve.

 

The healthcheck covers performance of NHS Bolton from Apr 2008 – March 2009.  The core standards of quality were all fully met.  The rating of ‘Fair’ for quality is due to the standard being raised for some targets and the addition of new targets on life expectancy, stroke care and immunisation which have since shown improvement.

 

NHS Bolton Chief Executive Tim Evans said : “I am very pleased that the financial good practice of NHS Bolton has been recognised in the current financial climate.  It is very important to us to provide the best service to the people of Bolton and we aim to improve our rating next year.”