§ Dr. FoxTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of(a) a Commission for Health Improvement report and (b) the star-ratings as indicators of a hospital's performance. [13545]
§ Mr. HuttonThe Commission for Health Improvement (CHI) is an executive non-departmental public body which, among other things, reviews arrangements by national health service trusts for monitoring and improving the quality of health care for which they have responsibility.
The Department's NHS performance ratings, represent a high level summary of the overall performance of non-specialist acute NHS hospital trusts against a number of key targets and indicators with a particular staff, patient and clinical focus. The performance ratings concentrate primarily on the management of NHS trusts rather than the quality of care.
We are confident that the assessment made in both cases is robust, fair and complementary. The CHI looked at the performance ratings for those organisations it had already reviewed and confirmed that they provide a fair assessment based on the available data.