Our response to the new National Quality Strategy

The new Quality Strategy, developed by the National Quality Board, aims to put quality at the centre of the NHS’s work, providing a new structured approach to making quality the organising principle for all NHS activity in England over the next decade. It applies to system-wide, guiding national bodies, NHS leaders, the wider healthcare workforce and partners whose actions impact the quality of care in local communities.

The strategy’s definition of high-quality care is based on the following principles:

• Safety: Reducing the risk of unintended or unexpected harm to patients arising from the provision of healthcare.
• Effectiveness: Delivering evidence-based care that optimises the outcomes that matter to people using services.
• Experience: Coordinated, compassionate and responsive care, delivered by staff who are skilled, supported and able to do their job well.

 It outlines “10 enablers” to support quality improvement, including listening to and working with people and communities on what matters to them.

Our Interim Director of Policy and External Affairs welcomed the strategy's focus on patient experience, saying:

“It is welcome that the National Quality Strategy focuses on patient experience, which it considers equally important to quality as safety and effective healthcare. For too long, components such as clear communication and feeling listened to have been overlooked despite their importance to patients. 

“The strategy sets out almost 40 metrics for patient experience. Some of these cover the top priorities reported to us by the public, including how easy it is to get through to their GP surgery on the phone. However, with so many metrics on improving experience there is a risk that providers of NHS services aren’t clear on which to prioritise. The Oversight Framework will be a key mechanism for focusing providers and commissioners on a core set of priorities. We would like to see this include metrics on communication and experiences of waiting for care, such as the standards recently announced for waiting for elective care. 

“It will be key that as data is collected on quality over the coming years we are able to break it down by demographics. We know that some demographic groups report poorer experiences of care, notably including the financially disadvantaged, ethnic minority groups and those who are neurodivergent. 

“Finally, it will be important that the NHS continues to value patient stories, and not simply rely on survey answers. People value being able to describe their experiences in their own words, and one story can be more powerful than a sea of stats.”