How will you ensure Quality Accounts allow for meaningful comparisons between providers, with best practice, and over time?
The Department, working with the NHS and professional and patient organisations has released a menu of Indicators for Quality Improvement (IQI) for use by local clinical teams and NHS providers. While we want providers to have the freedom to decide on the content of the local element of their Quality Account, we will nevertheless encourage providers to make use of the IQI. Therefore, providers will not necessarily report on all the same indicators, but those that select the same indicator from the IQI would be able to compare themselves against each other, and against the national picture. Quality Observatories will also be able to support the identification and development of quality indicators at provider level to feed into Quality Accounts.
