Letter from Rosie Winterton MP, Minister
of State, Department of Health, to Charlotte Atkins MP
I am writing to you following my appearance
at the Health Select Committee on 26 January. You asked how the
public service agreement on enhancing public accountability and
experience is measured. To ensure that you have a full comprehension
of the issue I would like to expand on my original answer as follows.
As I said before, the Healthcare Commission
monitors the way NHS organisations have fulfilled their duty under
Section 11 of the Health & Social Care Act 2001. It does this
by assessing each organisation against core standard 17 of the
Department of Health's Standards for Better Health:
C17 The views of patients, their carers and
others are sought and taken into account in designing, planning,
delivering and improving health care services.
We measure patients' experience through a series
of national patient surveys and these are again administered for
us by the Healthcare Commission, who use the results as part of
the assessment of NHS performance. Over one million patients have
been surveyed so far, and results are generally positive, with
big improvements reported on waiting times. All survey results
are available on the Healthcare Commission website www.healthcarecommission.org.uk.
I hope that this reply is helpful.
9 February 2006
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