Care Quality Commission publishes NHS performance ratings

While MRSA and C. difficile rates are decreasing, acute trusts still need to do more on infection control. This year 48 acute trusts did not meet at least one of the three relevant standards, compared to 44 last year.

Today’s assessment measures performance in the NHS in key priority areas set by government. Next year, CQC will further develop regulation to become more focussed on patients and outcomes. All trusts will need to register with the regulator to legally function.

CQC said compliance with core standards is a good indication of whether a trust is ready for registration. Overall compliance with standards has increased from 95% to 96%. However, only about half of trusts fully met all core standards and compliance declined in the acute sector with 59% fully met this year compared to 69% last year.

Cynthia Bower, CQC chief executive, said: “The NHS has performed well on quality, which is good news in the face of a rigorous assessment. Those rated ‘excellent’ deserve to be commended – it is not easy to achieve this rating and missing just one standard could drop the score. Trusts rated ‘good’ have also performed strongly.

“But it is clear that some trusts are struggling and that some issues are proving tough nuts to crack. My biggest concern is those trusts that are ‘weak’ and persistently ‘weak’ or ‘fair’. They must do better for their patients.

“I want to ring the alarm bell in the boardrooms of these organisations. Next year, all trusts must register with us to legally function. It is clear that many have significant work to do and a short time in which to do it.”

CQC is committed to making sure that services involve people and respond to their views.  As part of this, it is today urging people to comment online about the NHS and their local services.

Results for Quality by trust type

Acute and specialist trusts: 22% are “excellent”, 48% “good”, 25% “fair” and 5% “weak”, compared to 31%, 46%, 18% and 5% respectively in 2007/08.

Primary care trusts: CQC rated 2% of PCTs “excellent”, 51% “good”, 45% “fair” and 3% “weak”, compared to 6%, 27%, 62% and 5% respectively in 2007/08. The improvement is driven by greater compliance with core standards and improved performance against some measurements, including that related to chlamydia screening. However, 22% of PCTs achieved their local plans to reduce the rates of teenage conception.

Mental health trusts: In 2008/09, 30% scored “excellent”, 46% “good”, 16% “fair” and 9% “weak”. Last year, the ratings were 64%, 25%, 7% and 4% respectively in 2007/08. Trusts are now assessed against eight new indicators. Trusts struggled to meet a new indicator relating to quality of basic data which is essential to monitor quality of care.

Ambulance trusts: No ambulance trusts scored “excellent”, two scored “good”, six “fair” and three “weak”. Last year, two were “excellent”, five “good”, one “fair” and three were “weak”. There are seven new indicators in the assessment. Nationally, the number of life threatening calls (category A) responded to within eight minutes dropped from 77% last year to 74.3% this year. However, this still represents a strong performance given a continued increase in calls and the eight minute clock starting earlier.

Core standards with lowest rate of compliance

    * C11b (87.6%) – participation in mandatory training