What is Advancing Quality?
The Advancing Quality programme is the first of its kind in the UK and will ensure patients have an overall better experience in hospital, and ultimately a better quality of life. Patients will also have more say and influence, as their opinions and experiences of care they receive in hospital will be taken into account and acted on.
The programme, which launched on October 1, 2008, will provide incentives to hospitals to improve the quality of care provided to patients. The quality will be measured in three ways:
- Clinical outcomes: evidence-based measures that demonstrate the quality of care and treatment
- Patient-reported outcome measures which will show if patients' quality of life has improved following surgery
- Patient experience: we will record the patient’s experience of the care provided.
Advancing Quality is focused on improving the quality of care in five key treatment areas:
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Heart attack- Heart failure
- Heart bypass operation
- Pneumonia
- Hip and knee replacement
If successful, the programme will save lives, reduce re-admissions, reduce complications and decrease the length of stay in hospital for patients. It will also help hospitals significantly reduce costs, allowing the NHS to plough the money back into improving care and facilities.
Find out more about the hospitals involved