NHS to refocus on quality of care

The quality of a patient's care will become the central focus of the National Health Service, with hospitals and care teams rewarded for achieving high standards, the government said on Monday.

Patients will be given a new legal right to choose their GP practice and the kind of treatment they will receive under a draft NHS constitution, launched on the 60th anniversary of the state-funded service.

Approval of newly launched drugs will be speeded up to reduce the so-called "post code lottery" where patients get different treatments depending on where they live.

The measures were announced as part of a major review into the future of the health service conducted by surgeon and Health Minister Lord Darzi.

"We must have an unwavering, unrelenting, unprecedented focus on quality," said Health Secretary Alan Johnson.

"We will legislate so that all providers of NHS services will be required by law to publish 'Quality Accounts' just as they publish financial accounts."

Patients will be able to use these quality reports to help them choose where to go for treatment.

Hospitals and other providers would also be given financial bonuses for reaching top quality standards.

The government's former national targets on areas like reducing waiting lists would be phased out, with responsibility for delivering quality care devolved to regional health authorities.

Influential medical journal the Lancet praised Darzi for proposing a "cultural shift" in the NHS, which employs 1.3 million people in England and will spend more than 100 billion pounds next year.

"Darzi has wisely thrown out regulation as the organising principle of the NHS," said Lancet editor Richard Horton.

"He has replaced it with quality, by which he means clinical effectiveness, patient safety, and the patient experience."

Darzi has already published separate reviews for England's strategic health authorities and Monday's report builds on these.

Plans to build a network of 150 supersized surgeries - or polyclinics - are already under way, offering patients access to a team of family doctors and nurses seven days a week.

The polyclinics are a key part of Darzi's plan to widen access to healthcare but have run into stiff opposition from the doctors' grouping, the British Medical Association, which fears they will spell the end of small family doctor practices.

The government will detail further plans for primary and community care in a report on Thursday.