"The Department of Health and Social Sare (DHSC) was glowing in its description of the league tables by which all of England's 205 NHS trusts are now being judged: a landmark moment, a pioneering new system and a new era of transparency. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said that sunlight is the best disinfectant in his zeal to expose, and drive out, poor care."
"Tony Blair's then Labour government brought in a very similar system star ratings as part of its NHS plan in 2000. Siva Anandaciva, the director of the policy at the King's Fund, remembers those ratings as like those given to hotels and other services; consumer-friendly and easy-to-understand. The aims of the star regime then were the same then as Streeting's are for league tables now: to increase transparency about NHS care, make NHS managers more publicly accountable and reduce variation in the quality of care."
"From the start, NHS league tables and star ratings were embroiled in controversy, recalls Anandaciva. No one could fault the desire for greater transparency. But the ratings were rightly criticised for being too simplistic in trying to boil down all the different things a hospital or ambulance service does into a single rating. That has been NHS England's challenge recently in drawing up the league tables: to avoid them being crude catch-all measures of trusts' performance across the board,"
The Department of Health and Social Care introduced league tables judging all 205 English NHS trusts and promoted them as a new era of transparency. Wes Streeting described sunlight as the best disinfectant to expose and drive out poor care. The league tables resemble the star ratings introduced in 2000 under Tony Blair's government, with similar aims of increasing transparency, holding managers publicly accountable and reducing variation in quality and waiting times. Critics argue that single ratings oversimplify diverse hospital and ambulance services. NHS England faces the challenge of designing league tables that avoid crude catch-all measures while encouraging healthy competition between trusts.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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